


An Awful Lot of Slaughterhousealot

by frustratedFreeboota



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Nonbinary Character, Serial Killers, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 21,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18704077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frustratedFreeboota/pseuds/frustratedFreeboota
Summary: An attempt to create an anthology series stringing together stories of every single member of the Slaughterhouse 9, past and present, with a focus on the post Brockton Bay lineup. More of a silly romp with the various murderers trying to get along when they aren't busy with their whole murderhobo thing. Lot of LGBT+ themes explored, to varying degrees, a lot of pointless links for mood setting, and a lot of silly headcanons here and there.





	1. Jagged Panther

Warning for fascism and dysphoria.

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https://imgur.com/xqpNhKl

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He peeled his face away from the damp pillowcase, waking to a familiar, cramped, and unpleasant feeling. Something about his dream must have been exciting.

"The flag is high, the something is geschlossen..." he mumbled, lurching out of bed, sheets left in a mess to be cleaned up when he could manage. One hand fumbled behind the curtains to open a window without exposing himself. Bad enough he had to see it, let alone anyone else. Nothing, not even a slight breeze to help with the smell. He'd only gone and taken a shower before bed and already he needed to clean himself. He growled a little as he lurched towards the bathroom, then stopped himself. Back straight. Head high. Proud. He certainly seemed to be proud, from the unpleasant glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror he caught before he could focus on something else. He turned his eyes to his face. It wasn’t quite as bad to see his face, a red and bleary eyed mess that squinted and sneered at nothing in particular. His hair was a mess. Too long to do anything with it, a ponytail would look too girlish and European, a knot was out of the question. Nothing left to do other than leave it all out, curled up and knotted.

Another absent glance down, another ugly pang in his chest. He tried not to pay it much heed, walked over to the shower, let himself in, struggled to close the door. Another deliberate glance down. It was supposed to be something to take pride in. Instead the mess of hair made him look like a satyr. The beard certainly made him look like a goat.

"We march in quick, fast step..." he hummed, trying to get a tune to carry. Something to distract himself with.

He ran his hand through blonde strands, trying to get the knot out without using a comb or tearing out a clump of hair. Not blonde, blond. Blonde was the feminine, his tired brain reminded him. Blonde was for girls, blond was for boys. One of those French things, not that he’d ever tried to learn French. He knew a little German, about as much as he could have from school, a few words and one or two songs that he’d taught himself.

The soap scratched his hand as he tried to work up a lather. It had picked up a hair again. He spared a glance down to his legs. Legs like a mangrove forest, between all the damp hairs and the layer of sweat congealed on them from a warm night. Thick enough they might need shampoo at this point. What was he going to do, wax them? Get legs like some prancing ballerina?

He turned off the water. A little bit cleaner, feeling a lot dirtier for the brief moment of handling needed to clean himself.

"Soon fly the Hitler-flag over every street. The time is soon, for..."

For something. He left the towel around his waist, water dribbling down from hair that wouldn’t quite dry even after the towel was sodden. Inconvenient, but there was no point losing the hair. He’d never look right as a skin head. And it was part of the look now. And even if it looked a little ridiculous when it was sopping wet, it was nice to have it falling down his back and across his chest.

He felt a little better, took a good hard look at his reflection, moved a hand to rub his stubble encrusted neck to feel for the ugly little bristly hairs, and gave a scratch to where the skin was still itching beneath the beard. The beard was getting long. What had started as something small to frame his face with had been left to grow into something unruly and wiry. If he left it much longer it would be poking out from under his mask. Best to trim it now than let it get that ridiculous. Best to just get the scissors and hack it back down to something more manageable.

He grabbed a bundle of it, cut it inward rather than clean across so that it still came to a point, tossed the handful of hairs into the trash can. A little better, if a little uneven. The right was longer than the left.

A slow shuddering breath, and a trembling hand as his hand passed over the electric razor. Just a trim today. Leave the beard. Clean away any of the pathetic little fluff on the sides, the beginnings of the sideburns that he'd tried to grow to no real success, and the neck.

The razor stopped abruptly with an ugly little groan. Push the little clip on the side to release the front, take it off... the thing was clogged with an ugly brown dust from all the little hairs cut off and churned up and stuck inside the thing between the three blades that made this thing cut. A little fiddling and it all came apart in his hands, scattering all the bits of it about the sink.

“Ffff-“

He cut himself short, a bite to his lip all that kept him from hitting something. A few drips of blood fell from his balled up fist, mingling with the spilled hair dust to make even more of a mess of his sink.

He opened his hand, looked to the tangle of hooks that had started to work their way out of the palm and the nasty cuts they’d made on his fingers. He winced, started to run the tap without really thinking about the mess he was about to clog up his drain with, wiped away the blood to see how big the cut was. Big enough. Another reminder of how sharp everything was underneath.


	2. The Workplace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night Hag raises a complaint about working with a Nazi.

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https://youtu.be/x1U1Ue_5kq8

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"So, I didn't want to make a fuss or anything..." Night Hag began, interrupting the creative rendition of 99 bottles of beer on the wall that Bonesaw was using to pass the time. "But does anyone else care that we have a literal Nazi on the team with us?"

"Eh?" Skinslip gurgled, stolen face twisting with shock as he glanced down at the preteen doctor.

"No. Not her," Night Hag snapped. "Him."

"Eh?" Skinslip followed her finger past Bonesaw, past the pale woman wearing the exact same hairstyle and dress as Night Hag, to the shirtless blond rummaging through their RV's fridge.

"Hem?" Skinslip mumbled, before giving a shake of his head.

"He has a tattoo of a swastika," the Slaughterhouse 9's black clad enby whispered with horrified urgency.

Another shake of the head from Skinslip.

"I am telling you, he is a Nazi."

"What's all this talk about Nazis?" Jack interjected, pulling back the curtain that separated the driver's cabin from the rest of the rather more conspicuous occupants of their stolen recreational vehicle.

"Hookwolf," Night Hag said.

"Yes?"

"He's a Nazi."

"The Slaughterhouse 9 are an inclusive and diverse workplace," Jack Slash said, voice far too interesting for the droll words he was speaking. "We have never nor will we ever practice any form of discrimination against applicants based on race, sex, or physical ability during our hiring process."

"Ok," Night Hag said, very slowly and methodically drawing out the two letter word. "But I think you hired a literal nazi, and that is making this all very uncomfortable for me."

"Well Skinslip's ok with him," Jack said, contrariwise.

"Why would Skinslip have a problem with a Nazi?" Night Hag asked.

"Why would Skinslip have a problem with a Nazi?" Jack repeated, with a roll of his eyes. "Have you seen him?"

The two turned their heads upwards to where teammate had swaddled himself up in the little bed above the driver's seat. A white woman's face, caught mid scream, looked back at them, before he resumed playing about with his stapler. "He's not exactly the aryan ideal is he?"

"I want you to take this seriously. Having a skinhead on the team can't be good for your image."

"I don't think our PR is going to be any worse if people think I support free speech," Jack said, picking up his newspaper again, still perusing the little article about their last stopover.

"He's a fucking Nazi!"

"Shut up," Hookwolf rumbled, slamming the door shut on the mini fridge.

"Or what, you're going to kill me?" Night Hag said, almost hysterical now. "Good luck with that."

Hookwolf said nothing, instead positioning his bottle's cap in between his fingers, popping it off with a pair of blades protruding from his thumb and forefinger. The two glared at each other, neither refusing to look away until Hookwolf finished the first swig of his lager.

Night Hag's hands crossed, and they bobbed a little, pretending to look at the calendar the RV's former owners had put up. It took less than a minute for them to start up again with a hushed little sing song tune. "Its a good thing he's on the whitest team the Slaughterhouse 9 has ever had. God forbid one of us was black."

"I can hear you," Hookwolf snarled.

"Black," Night Hag said, idly.

"Stop it," Hookwolf snarled, grip tightening on his bottle.

"See?" Night Hag added. "All I did was say it and he twitched. Black."

"Be careful what you say around Skinslip," Jack said, stern disapproval in his face. Night Hag shot an annoyed look up to where the changer was clipping and unclipping the little lid bit that kept the staples in his stapler.

"I'm sorry Jack, I didn't notice. I'm pretty sure Buffalo Bill over there passes for white."

Skinslip's stolen face shifted a little, the look of frozen panic on the woman's face working itself into a frown.

"You've upset him now," Jack said.

"Shut up!" their driver screamed. "Shut! Up! I don't care who called who a Nazi, if I have to sit through another hour of this while we all wait in fucking rush hour traffic I am going to go berserk! Now shut up, or so help me I am going to turn this van around! Are we clear?"

Noone said anything, too transfixed by the flicker of black and white that had nearly manifested at their driver's side.

"I said are we clear?" the driver shouted, taking his eyes off the gridlocked road to glare at the rest of his team.

"We're clear," Bonesaw said, very still.

"I'm going to put some fucking music on," the driver muttered, fiddling with the radio for a minute, slapping the dashboard, cussing again under his breath until Jack leaned over to gently slide a CD in. Killing Joke spun into life, drowning out the echoes of their driver's shouting.

"Now isn't that better?" Jack said, after a minute or two, to noone in particular. Noone said anything back.

"This Nirvana?" Hookwolf asked, a song later.

"No," Night Hag said.

"Sounds like Nirvana," Hookwolf scoffed, taking another swig of beer, leaning his shirtless back against the wall of the RV.

"Yeah well Killing Joke thought that too," Night Hag said. 

"I heard there was a lawsuit about it," Jack supplied.

"On Aleph," Nyx said.

"But not here?" Hookwolf asked.

"No," Jack supplied.

"Why?" Hookwolf asked.

Jack shrugged. "Massive change of subject, but you know who she reminds me of?" Jack asked, to noone in particular.

"Who?" Night Hag said, looking towards Bonesaw, who looked to Damsel in turn, who was already staring at Bonesaw in the hopes the young girl's head would pop if she glared hard enough.

"Sorry. You know who they remind me of?" Jack said, pointing back towards Night Hag.

"Who?" Night Hag asked, shooting Jack a look.

"Nyx," Jack said.

"I can see it," Bonesaw said.


	3. THEM!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyx and Night Hag meet their daughter/sister/brother/spawn.

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https://youtu.be/7vFGKHzY_38

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"Why do I have to be here?" Nyx rasped, feeling positively wretched. Her hair was stuck together with what felt like egg yolk, her clothes were tatty old rags instead of anything remotely comfortable, and apparently the same fucking migraine she'd had two decades ago had been brought back to life with her. Her voice didn't even sound like hers, with the lifetime of cigarettes something that apparently happened to some other woman.

"I need to check the fusion is balanced," the twelve year old girl began, rattling off a few pseudo scientific buzzwords that Nyx just about knew enough about from sociology class to know when they were being misused.

"Honestly I'm jealous," came the annoyingly happy voice of the girl in black trailing behind them, a trail of ugly black gunk left by her footfalls. Her voice seemed to range from loud to fucking loud. "They get the plural they. Noone's going to misgender... Oh. What are we calling them again?"

"I'm not really good with names..." the girl, Bonesaw, said, at last stopping before a glass tank filled with the same gross slime that Nyx had been disgorged from, seemingly dyed with bits of black that ran through it like food dye in a cup before it all got mixed together.

"Come on, what are we calling them..." Night Hag trilled, pale hands held together with the ridiculous and giddy excitement she seemed to exude.

"Can I leave?" Nyx asked.

"Nope." Bonesaw said, and a little snarl escaped Nyx's lips.

"You have to be here for this. You're Nyx, and she's, I mean they're..."

"They?" Nyx asked.

"Night Hag." Bonesaw finished, ignoring her as she moved to play about with a few clasps on the cloning pod. "And this is Nighty Night."

"I love it." Night Hag said.

"Good morning Nighty Night!" Bonesaw said, waving to the silhouette inside the pod. A hand pressed itself against the glass, a layer of black ink spreading out from their fingertips until the glass was blocked off.

"I love it," they said, with a smile working its way into their face and a warmth filling up their cheeks.

"What do you mean they?" Nyx repeated herself.

"Because I'm a they." Night Hag said, still pouring over the unopened pod. "I identify as transfemme nonbinary, my preferred pronouns are they/them-"

"And what does any of that mean?" Nyx asked, the scars across her arms puckering open, a little trickle of gas leaking out before she could close them up.

"Oh." Night Hag said. "You died in the eighties, didn't you? Things sort of changed. There's a woman on the triumvirate so everyone's supposedly okay with women, there's a gay member of the triumvirate so everyone's allegedly okay with being gay, but who cares if you want to see trans representation in capes..."

"Are you a boy or a girl?" Nyx asked, as plainly as she could.

"Yes."

"Which one?" Nyx said, thankful she couldn't turn any redder than she already was.

"Either."

"That's a thing?"


	4. Smokers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sisters and smokers take a moment to talk things out.

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https://youtu.be/-px_X5OnpwY

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"Cigarette?" Selene asked, midway through readying one for herself before she caught the look her sister was giving her.

"No thanks," Patricia said, eyes lingering on the packet. "I quit."

"Didn't know," Selene said, slipping the packet back into the pocket of her jacket.

"I told you last year," Patricia said, in that same old sing-song I'm-not-annoyed little way. Selene looked the other way, taking her first drag. 

They checked their digital watches, Patricia first and Selene a minute later. Nearly quarter to, and they'd been told to get here for half past.

"And you're sure this is real?" Patricia asked, adjusting her grip on her handbag again.

"Yes," Selene said, with all the assurance of a woman whose loitering about the door of a closed down machine shop had dragged on fifteen minutes more than promised.

Another minute passed, along with another hasty check of Patricia's wrist.

"I think," Patricia said, blinking for a moment or two, giving another brief and hungry look to Selene's cigarette. "I think I'm going to leave."

"No!" Selene blurted, and Patricia gave her a patient shake of her head. "Five more minutes!" Selene added, five fingers held up on one hand.

"If you don't want to talk to me that's fine," Patricia said, discomfort creeping through into her shoulders and her posture. "But if I start walking now I can catch the next bus home."

"It has to be both of us!" Selene blurted.

"What?"

"They wanted twins," Selene said, with a very deliberate shrug of her shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Patricia said nothing, and it was a nothing that was enough of a thing to worry Selene, and see her already hasty words hasten that little bit more. "Maybe, maybe they wanted to see if we got the same power," she said, with another little shrug.

"You just keep making more of this up," Patricia said, exhausted. "I didn't come here because I believed you. I came here because I thought you wanted to talk to me about you," she said, with a vague gesture at Selene and her clothes.

"Me?" Selene said, midway to another drag.

"You."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Selene replied, her cigarette abandoned.

"You know what I mean," Patricia said, with a worrying little look.

"I don't," said Selene.

"You don't dress... you look like a man."

"Its called jeans," Selene said plainly.

"It's not just that, or your hair, its..." Patricia bit her lip, mortified. "I found your magazines."

"I was borrowing them from a friend," Selene swiftly said. Another technical little truth. Patricia could certainly believe she'd borrowed them, but the tone had been a touch too disarming.

"I read some of them," Patricia said.

"And? I was comparing myself. You've never done that?"

Patricia looked left, and then right. They were still very much alone. "I don't think you were comparing anything."

The two let it sit for a little while longer, neither quite wanting to talk.

"Is there something wrong with that?" Selene said.

"Well I don't know what that means," Patricia said, voice hushed. "Are you a-" She paused, looking left and right again before she mouthed the word. 

"No," Selene snapped.


	5. Come As You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Manton don't need this.

[MEDIA=youtube]vabnZ9-ex7o[/MEDIA]

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Manton should have taken Manton's own van. Manton could have taken Manton's own van if some purple thinker with a big mouth hadn't blurted out Manton's only secret. Manton checked the mirror. Everyone seemed to have settled down. Nice happy family again until the next argument.

"I thought she was red?" said the first of the new girls. Talkative bitch finally managed to get it out, last five times she tried to open her mouth were cut off by the horns of everyone else stuck in traffic around em. Manton woulda done it too if the horn worked. Bonesaw had the right idea with the other new girl. That girl wasn't going to say anything anytime till she was a part of the team.

"No, not like that," said Jack Slash, with a little flippant wave of his hand. Smug prick trying to act like he wasn't acting. "She was a bit more butch than you, there was this thing where she... Nevermind."

Things got quiet again. Manton let Manton's grip on the wheel loosen a little. Manton let Manton lose Manton to the sounds of Nirvana. Got a little Kurt Cobain going on. Take it all in. Take a few breaths that weren't just automatic. Look with Manton's own eyes.

"Is the Siberian trans?" the new girl asked. Nosy bitch. Manton frowned hard beneath Manton's beard. Jack had finally gotten rid of Ned and he'd gone and he'd replaced him with a talker.

"Huh?" Bonesaw asked. Good girl. She didn't sound like Manton's daughter, she didn't look like Manton's daughter, but five years of custody said Bonesaw was Manton's daughter. Or Siberian's daughter at least. Bonesaw cuddled Siberian, Bonesaw took piggybacks on the Siberian, Manton was just some scary hobo in a van.

"You're confusing her," Hookwolf said. Nazi prick. Of all the people to join them it had too be the Nazi.

"She turned two women into one woman and she's operated on Jack Slash's junk, I don't think someone wanting-" the new girl said. Bitch.

"Blindfolded. I'm not supposed to see that sort of stuff," Bonesaw said. Fibber.

"I don't think someone wanting to be a woman is going to confuse-"

"Being a woman," Jack cut in.

"You kill people!" the new girl said, trying to be the loudest in the room.

"And?" Bonesaw said sweetly. Good girl.

"You know what, it doesn't matter," the new girl said, and Manton watched the reflection out of the corner of Manton's eye as she made a show of sitting herself down.

"It matters," Hookwolf said. Hairy shirtless prick.

"Of course you'd think it matters," the new girl muttered.

"Siberian, are you a transsexual?" Hookwolf asked.

"That's really not the right word..." the new girl added. Talker.

"Well?" Hookwolf asked. Manton eyed him in the mirror. Worst piece of WWE reject American History X extra looking white trash since Crimson.

"We know you can talk," Jack Slash chimed in. "I'm kind of curious myself. Years of thinking you couldn't say a word. You have my ear."

Manton's mouth didn't quite move at first. Manton had to wait a little bit, take a few breaths in.

"Is there any good answer to this?" Manton said, not quite sure if Manton was a little loud or a little quiet.

"No," Hookwolf said, at the same time as Night Hag muttered a "Yes."

"I kill people," Manton said, staring at the licence plate of the car in front of the van. "A lot," Manton added. "And putting it nicely I dress up in the body of a naked woman that has the face of my daughter, and I kill and I eat people while I'm wearing her skin."

The RV stayed quiet, and Manton stared past the car in front at the car in front of the car in front of the car in front, and the little glimmer of movement Manton had spotted.

"So what pronouns should I use?" the new girl asked.

"Siberian's a woman," Manton said, watching the car in front of the car in front move a few scant feet.

"So she slash her?" the new girl asked.

Manton said nothing. The car in front moved a few feet, and Manton budged the RV up to fill the gap. One car at a time.

"You make a nice big sister," Bonesaw said.

"Thanks," Manton said, watching the still cars all around them.


	6. Orlando Florida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Culture clash.

[MEDIA=youtube]w3lwgm7ORM8[/MEDIA]

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"Sorry if I'm a little tetchy with someone whose only exposure to people playing with their gender is reading Orlando for their fucking English literature studies class, in fucking Cambridge!" Nag screamed, their stolen gun trembling in its sideways grip, pointed not too threateningly towards Leyla.

"Well I'm sorry if I'm a little tetchy around someone whose only exposure to Orlando is through the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!" Leyla barked back, her own pistol calmly pointed at the Night Hag's scalp.

"Fuck you!" Nag screamed back, and with a squeeze of Leyla's trigger the contents of her head were promptly sprayed across the sign for the children's reading corner.

Their head, Leyla corrected herself. Leyla, the woman the world knew as Shatterbird, now one of the women the world knew as Shatterbird, closed her eyes. Ten more bullets. She had ten more bullets, and she prayed that the world would be well and truly ended before she ran out. And it had better end good and fast, or there'd be none left if she found herself in need of an even more undignified death than her last one, stuck in a hole in the ground with a malformed girl who insisted on talking about shit. Nevermind. A bullet to the brain to escape yet another argument with the Slaughterhouse 9's diversity hire would at least be a little more dignified than that.

There was a truly dire sound, along the lines of what Leyla had once overheard in a particularly grim public lavatory in a student bar in Cambridge when she had dared to use the men's to dodge a particularly long queue for the women's room. The same wet sound that had followed the loss of the last five bullets, and would presumably claim the next nine.

"I needed that," the Nag gurgled through a mouth that they couldn't be bothered to wait to let reform, and Leyla was sorely tempted to spend another bullet just to buy herself a few more precious seconds of quiet. Her eyes blinked opened in time to see her fellow murderer stepping over the splintered remains of their own corpse as it slowly sank into the library floor. A black chunk in the shape of a woman had been pulled out of the sign for the children's reading corner.

"I'm not letting you have it," Leyla said, one hand training her gun on Nag again, the other cradling what might very well be the only copy of Orlando in post-apocalypse Florida for all she knew. For as long as she had bullets in her gun this book would not be dog eared, or creased, or stained by spilt coffee machine coffee.

"Not ever?" Nag said, with a pathetic little expression on their face.

"Not until I'm done with it."

"You've already read it once!"

"That was a long time ago, and I want to read it again without you touching it."

"Not even when you aren't reading it?"

"Not until I'm done with it," Leyla repeated, adjusting her aim towards Nag's kneecaps. That got a wince. They'd have to deal with it all afternoon until they offed themselves. "We should have thought about this before we let Burnscar run through a library unsupervised," Leyla added, with a wave of her hand towards the charred remains of the classical literature section.

"How is your pet pyromaniac my fault?" Nag said, sulkily slumping into one of the children's reading corner's bean bag chairs.

"She's not a pet," Leyla said, finally holstering her weapon.

"Really? Because you let her put her feet up on your lap."

"She's a friend," Leyla said, looking about for the office chair she'd dragged over from the Librarian's desk. There. By the reading desk, still half eaten from when the last time Nag had died. "Nothing more," Leyla added, letting herself align with the comfortably ergonomic seat.

"The way Jack told it you were practically sleeping with her..." Nag grumbled, hands crossed.

"Oh stop it," Leyla said, letting herself slouch a little.

"Why not, s'not the end of the world if you are."

"You shouldn't joke about that."

"But we caused it."

"Not that, sleeping with women," Leyla said, giving Nag her most serious of looks. "Sinful."

"And? You killed London!" the Night Hag said.

"And that was sinful," Leyla said, maintaining her serious and dignified glare.

"So what, you're being evil now, shouldn't you go around snogging women?"

Leyla's index finger twitched habitually, even as the corner of her mouth crept up a little.

"She's younger than me," she remarked.

"You're clones! You're literally the same age!"

The automatic doors to the library slid open, a welcome enough interruption from the same endless argument. A young woman with wild excitable little eyes and a tatty red sequined dress that didn't quite fit her, a shopping bag in each arm.

Leyla raised a hand from its rest and gave her a weak hello.

"Hey!" Mimi called. "Found some more tins!"

"Are they kosher?" Shatterbird replied, to an incredulous groan from her erstwhile conversation partner.


	7. Damsel Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damsel of Distress

[MEDIA=youtube]ZSN1mcNFBHE[/MEDIA]

"Mind your head," a little girl's voice said.

"Ow."

Damsel's eyes flashed open, and the whole room lit up in one moment of terrible clarity. The back of an ambulance, blood splattered across the walls and white metal piled up wherever there was free space. A black haired woman in a black and frilled dress looked down at her, a ceiling lamp swinging gently behind her head, her hand rubbing at a spot just at the back and a little pained expression on a face so covered in makeup as to look like a doll. A black and frilled dress. A black and frilled dress that Damsel happened to know should be at the bottom of her wardrobe awaiting a day it might fit.

You!, Damsel said. The woman pointed at herself, a very ungraceful and confused look on her pretty little chalk plastered face.

Yes you! Damsel tried to spit, and the sound her throat made was faint and faraway. Give me my dress back, Damsel tried to say.

"Pardon?" the other girl said.

You stole that! Give it back!, Damsel tried to say, pointing a finger at the other girl. A clawed, razor tipped finger. Damsel stared down in shock. It wasn't just her finger. Her whole arm had been stretched out. She could probably touch her toes without bending her knees. That little brat had said she was going to fix her hands, not turn them into something out of through the looking glass. She hadn't even done a good job, Damsel could see wires still poking through.

"Did she wake up yet?" Bonesaw said, the little girl's voice echoing through the back of the van.

"Yeah, but she's having trouble talking," the woman in the stolen dress said, looking off somewhere behind Damsel.

Damsel raised her clawed finger towards the woman's head, poking her in the cheek. The woman turned around, a quiet look of worry dawning on it as Damsel let loose, a mighty warp blast tearing her make up plastered face from her pretty little shoulders. A shame. A little lower and Damsel might have been able to save the dress. She'd managed to nick the straps with that one. And the van. And a tree outside.

"Bad Damsel!" Bonesaw squeaked, and Damsel started to lurch to her feet, rising from the stretcher like the product of mad science that she was. "Bad! No killing Nag! She hates that!"

"They!" a voice echoed from the side of the van. Damsel glanced down at the woman's body, one hand preparing a second tap. Another blast, destroying the broken up pieces her doll body had shattered into.

"They hate that," the voice echoed again, from the Ambulance's doors. Damsel raised a hand towards them, turning to glower at the woman forming herself out of the door. Black glass became hair, white paneling became skin, and identical black and frilled dress seemed to grow out of the skin as she knit back together.

Another blast, tossing the woman out of the Ambulance and into the bushes beyond, and Damsel was free to return her attention to the monstrous brat that had done this to her. Twelve years old, hair in Shirley Temple curls, blood down the oversized apron she wore.

"Stop killing Nag!" Bonesaw pouted.

Damsel lifted her hand towards the girl, and willed it to fire. There was an audible click, and a little fizzle of lightning from some of the chunks of metal jutting rudely out of her elbows.

"You big meanie! You just tried to kill me!"

"She killed me!" the voice echoed from out in the grass.

"And you killed Night Hag!"

You took my voice, Damsel tried to say, and she couldn't even hear a whisper now. You took my hands.

"I go and make you awesome new hands with razor blade fingers and automatic fire and recoil control and you try to kill me. Mean."

"This isn't what I wanted," Damsel rasped, examining her free hand. No sparks. No twitches. Not even a tremble. Lightning played over the elbow joints again.

"Well they're yours now," Bonesaw said, her little face red and full of emotion. "Ravager isn't going to want them back."

Damsel's brow furrowed.

"We had spare claws," Bonesaw said.

Damsel's claws clicked again.

"You can't shoot me," Bonesaw said, sticking her tongue out.

Damsel reached down, one claw extended, and prodded Bonesaw on the forehead.

"Ow." Bonesaw said, still frowning up at Damsel.

I want my dress back, Damsel mouthed.

"What?" Bonesaw said.

My dress! Damsel mouthed, one claw pointing menacingly into the bushes.


	8. Sawyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bubba.

[spoiler] https://i.makeagif.com/media/9-09-2015/BJeSn0.gif [/spoiler]

"Ok so I know you can't-" and the Night Hag mimed opening and closing a mouth with her hand.

"I can talk," Damsel whispered, loathing in her eyes.

"Sorry. I was just going to ask-"

"What," Damsel whispered.

"Have you ever heard Skinslip say anything?"

"Mute," Damsel whispered.

"What?"

"He's mute," Damsel rasped, trying her hardest to raise her voice.

"Ok, I thought he was just being scary and quiet or something, and I didn't want to ask or anything," Night Hag said, sounding positively relieved, one hand wiping imagined sweat from their brow before another shocked look overtook them. "Are we sure he's a he?" Night Hag asked, and Damsel rolled her eyes.

"Well they're wearing a woman's face," Night Hag said. "I really don't want to think about it but I'm thinking about it, ok? Would you want the only other woman on the team to be a-"

*click*

Night Hag watched Damsel's eyes lazily look past them, and they swore they could hear the staple fall to the floor. They turned around, and the smiling face of a dead woman greeted them.

"Oh hey Skinslip, we were just talking... about... you..." Night Hag managed, trying their level best not to imagine their own face stretched across Skinslip's, half rotted and covered in little lines where it had been patched into the rest of the little superhero cape Skinslip was sporting.

"I was just wondering what pronouns you used?" Night Hag ventured.

The stapler clicked twice, and the Night Hag did their best to smile despite the shiver working its way down their spine.

"Good to know," they said.


	9. Damsel Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Campfire.

[MEDIA=youtube]YYOKMUTTDdA[/MEDIA]

Campfires were the last thing Damsel had expected on joining the Slaughterhouse. Yet here she was, sat around a fire while Bonesaw and her mother and father made smores together. Bonesaw was sat in the Siberian's lap with chocolate sauce dribbling down her chin and onto her apron, and the Siberian's master sat to the right of the two of them and absently watched a sad looking marshmallow melt off of his stick and into the blazing fire. To the left of the Siberian sat Jack, sipping at a steaming hot chocolate with his first marshmallow floating atop it. At Jack's feet Hookwolf had unspooled himself into a pile of knives that lay warming itself in front of the fire, fire shining off the edges. Then came the Night Hag, looking boyish in a pair of khaki trousers and a zipper necked sweater, just watching the fire with her hands wrapped around an empty bottle of cider. And then poor old Ashley Stillons, the poor useless mad girl that would never amount to anything, sulked in her fold out chair between the Night Hag and the Siberian's master. A part of the most evil team to have ever lived.

Damsel pulled her finger out of the fire, manouevering her own perfectly toasted mallow into her mouth. Scorchingly hot. Sickeningly sweet. Narrowly close to slicing her tongue. She was eating supermarket brand marshmallows with the most evil people on Earth.

"So, everyone," Jack said, taking a slurp of his hot chocolate. People gradually turned to look, and Jack waited until he was sure he had their attention before he carried on. "You should know by now that Damsel of Distress here," he said, with a little gesture towards Damsel that flicked his shaving razor open, the blade catching the firelight. "Our Damsel is the latest member of the Slaughterhouse 9," Jack announced.

"What about Bubba over there?" Night Hag said, jabbing a thumb towards the man clad in a hoodie made from human skin, sauntering on over from his tree.

"Good point Nag," Jack said. "Anyone who hasn't met him yet, this is Skinslip, he found Night Hag, followed them here, he hasn't said a word to anyone, he wears human skin, and we're still a little short on members so welcome to the team Skinslip."  
The man wearing human skin gave two thumbs up, and Night Hag made a brief show of clapping.

"I have no idea what your powers are but I love your style. Anyway, this is Damsel of Distress, she's from Stafford New Hampshire, we've had an eye on her for a few years, very strong blaster with a little hint of mover, say hello Damsel."

Damsel glowered at him, her marshmallow residue covered blade of a finger moving to point at the gash across her throat.

"She's a little shy, Bonesaw's working on that," Jack said, drawing a brief smile from the miserable little brat of a tinker. Jack kept his mug terribly still, his other hand waving his knife about like a conductor's baton. "Now, I made Damsel a promise that she'd get what she wanted, and I think I have an idea who she might want dead. Damsel?"

"Accord," Damsel rasped.

"Oh," Jack said, a hint of a frown on his face. "And here I was thinking we were just going to loop back around and dismember Edict and Licit for you."

"Who?" Night Hag asked, looking up from the fire.

"The capes in Damsel's town."

"I thought you were going to kill them the first time."

"And I thought you were going to get me a new dress shirt while you were shopping."

"And I did."

"I know you're new here, Nag, but do I strike you as a man who wears pink?"

"Salmon."

"Getting off topic," Jack said, waving her off. "The point is, my dear Damsel has just named one of the richest and most successful villains in North America, a strategic thinker who has had years to sequester himself in one of the most secure lairs in the entire world."

"And we're gonna kill him?" Bonesaw said.

"Are we?" Jack asked, looking to Damsel. She nodded her head.

"Are you sure?" Jack asked. Damsel nodded aBecau "Because I think killing him and throwing his corpse out of his office window for all the city to see is wonderful and artistic, but if you wanted him to suffer first we could always give him to Bonesaw for a little while."

"Or Skinslip?" Night Hag added, glancing nervously towards the dressed in skin who went on to nod his head, his scarf of stitched together chins wobbling.

"Also a good idea," Jack said, carefully looking away from the man dressed in human skin before he took another sip of his hot chocolate. "I think we want to make this one about the lower classes rising up to undo the people that think themselves their betters. I'm seeing a lot of blood stains on the floors, but the bodies are all tucked away in closets?"

"Or chained to their desks?" Bonesaw ventured.

"Good idea."

Damsel sat back, her hands drooping, the arms of her camping chair hopelessly inadequate for her new claws. So these were the most evil people on Earth.

"Can I get another smore?" Bonesaw asked, looking up at Skinslip. Behind his stolen face of a mask, he rolled his eyes and started to wander off towards their shared Recreational Vehicle. "Can I get another cider?" Night Hag added, and then Manton's owner came in with a "Me too," and Damsel thought to raise her hand, but Skinslip's back was turned.

"Can I..." she began, but her voice was too quiet.

"Damsel wants one," the Night Hag said, and Skinslip held out a hand with a thumbs up.

"Underage drinking," Jack snidely remarked. "Careful. Wouldn't want the cops to spot that."

Damsel raised one claw in his direction, and the rest of the nine variously chuckled, guffawed, or giggled.

Soon enough Skinslip was back out again with another packet of smore fillings for the kid, and a six pack for the rest of them. Two were tossed to the Night Hag, who caught one after the other, and Skinslip promptly plopped down next to her and Jack with the rest, sitting cross legged on the flattened grass with the drinks cradled in his lap. Night Hag elbowed Damsel, and Damsel looked from her claws to the opened can, and back to Night Hag, and the Night Hag shrugged.

"Now Damsel gets the killing blow on this one," Jack prattled on in the background. Another elbow. Damsel turned, and the Night Hag held the can out for her again, and a few overly large fingers tried to clumsily grab at the can's lid. One caught the back of Night Hag's fingers, extracting a wince.

"She needs to be there so he knows just who he was messing with."

The Night Hag grit her teeth and squinted, looking worriedly at the cut with one eye before wincing again.

"Anyone else finds him, try and just maim him, you can kill him if you have to and we'll get Bonesaw to bring him back if we really need to..."

Damsel caught a sight of the cut, wincing herself from a twinge of empathy. Ow. Right on the knuckle. She waved a brief apology to the Night Hag, nearly poking her she out as she did, and the Night Hag just shuffled her chair a little further away from Damsel and sat herself back down with both cans, taking a hefty swig of her own.

"Something wrong?" Jack asked, glancing at the two of them, and Night Hag just smiled and shook her head, mouthing a "No."


	10. Damsel Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road again.

[MEDIA=youtube]dBN86y30Ufc[/MEDIA]

Night Hag stood steps away from the fridge, ducking left and right, blocked by Hookwolf at every turn until at last the nazi gave up and smugly let them through.

"Don't drink too much," Jack warned from his seat at the table, peering over his hand. "We're only halfway there."

"Got any threes?" Bonesaw asked.

"This isn't Go Fish."

"I know that," Bonesaw pouted. "But I've been waiting for a three forever now."

"Well now I'm not going to let go of my three, am I?"

The lid of Night Hag's Seven Up hissed and fizzled as they popped it open.

"Don't drink it," Jack warned.

"I don't need to pee," the Night Hag said.

"And in ten minutes you're going to be asking us to stop. Rummy."

"Phooey," Bonesaw said, still pouting.

"I don't have to drink either," Night Hag remarked, to an audience of noone.

"Don't be a sore loser."

"I'm not a sore loser."

"Some enby breaker thing..." Night Hag added, leaning against the wall opposite their fascist comrade. The two avoided looking at each other, both electing to instead stare at Bonesaw as she threw her cards at the table.

"Then don't sulk," Jack said, gathering up the deck.

"I don't wanna go to Boston," Bonesaw said, head flat against the table.

"Tough," Jack replied.

"But I don't. Do we haaaaave to go to Boston?"

"Well we promised dear Damsel now didn't we?"

The room looked to their almost newest member, whose bladed fingers paused in their plucking at the stuffing of the cushion in the back of the seat in front of her, her head slowly turning to shoot a look of bloody murder across the width of the RV at Bonesaw.

"I think she'd prefer it if you just let her talk," Night Hag ventured, cradling their untouched Seven Up.

"I thought she was mute?" Hookwolf said.

"No," Night Hag said, voice slipping a little until they resumed their almost unceasing valley girl impression. "Or at least, not until little miss Jigsaw cut her throat out."

"She was really loud," Bonesaw said boredly.

Damsel seemed to whisper something, eyes wide as she carried on glaring at Bonesaw.

"What is it with you people and cutting throats," Hookwolf muttered.

"I worked really hard on Damsel! She's art now!"

"How is she art?" Hookwolf said, squinting.

"She finally has control over her hands, but now her hands are still dangerous! And she's working with us so people are finally going to treat her seriously when she talks but now she can't talk, so she has to learn that actions matter more than acts. I'm trying to teach her a lesson and everyone's saying I shouldn't even though we always do this to new people, and now I explained it so it's not even subjective anymore!"

"I don't get art," Hookwolf said, taking another swig of his Bud.

"And you're changing her back afterwards?" Night Hag asked?

"Maybe."

"Promise?"

"I said maybe," Bonesaw whined.

"Promise or I'm going to pour soda in your hair."

"I promise I'll let Damsel talk when she finishes her tests."

"There's tests?" Hookwolf sputtered, coughing up half a bottle of weak beer.

"You already passed," Jack said, flipping over one upside down card in the deck after another.

"When?" Hookwolf asked, worried.

"That Hospital lobby. I was going to get you to get a Star of David tramp stamp..." Jack paused, a cruel and vulpine grin on his face. "But I like to think we've gotten the worst of all that discriminate murdering people out of your system."

"What about me?" Nag asked.

"Well Siberian didn't kill you when she tried," Jack supplied.

"Okay... "

"But you wouldn't let Bonesaw touch you,"

"Because she's a little creep that doesn't respect people's body autonomy..." Nag shot back.

"Hey!" Bonesaw yelped, frowning.

"What did we say about judging?" Jack asked, a fatherly look on his stunning daddish middle aged features. Night Hag said nothing, leaving Jack to continue with a firm little tone. "You can't just eat someone's leg and leave the rest because you were feeling full and then turn around and judge Bonesaw for one quadruple amputation. No judging. And that goes for Skinslip too. Now, as I was saying, I got you to eat that PRT officer in front of everyone, so that's two tests out of three."

"Alright," Nag said. "But what about her hands?"

"Whose?" Jack asked.

"Her hands, Damsel's hands," Night Hag said, pointing at the platinum blonde peeking through the RV's blinds, two clawlike fingers gently pushing one blind apart to give the tiniest glimpse of the cars stuck in traffic around them.

"What about her hands?" Bonesaw said, pouting, making a little humph as she did.


	11. REGICIDE, OR THE EPIC AND DARING ACCOUNT OF THE FINAL SHOWDOWN WITH KING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE BIG FIGHT

"So there we were," Jack began, and the assembled murderers all sat at the edge of their seats, even the ones who had heard this story before bed since they were six. "Breed was using the toilet, Screamer and Nyx were busy, Nicholas was stuck in the bottom of a crater, Psychosoma was drunk, and Crimson was just a man with a sword. Philip looked at me, and I swear I could see a tear in the corner of his eye, but he gave me that same little nod he always used to give me, and I knew that no matter what happened, well, I knew that this was it, this was our chance."

[MEDIA=youtube]S4kIfIUSV6o[/MEDIA]

"And that's how me and Harbinger killed King," Jack finished, to a round of flapping elephant seal like claps from a pleased Skinslip, a little cheer from Bonesaw, and a sarcastic golf clap from the beclawed hands of Damsel.

"That's just cheating," Night Hag said, still trying to wrap their head around the logistics of two homeless teenagers obtaining a live piglet in secret, let alone hiding one inside a school bus without anyone noticing.

"No such thing as cheating," Jack said, with a wicked grin.

"And everyone just let you be in charge?" Nag asked, looking over at the prized hunting knife Skinslip was presently fawning over like a child in show and tell, the knife that had once killed a man arguably slightly harder to kill than they were.

"Not really," Jack said, a strong sense of nostalgia in his voice. "We were still a business back then and unlike our dear old King I didn't have a degree in business. And Screamer already called dibs. No, I wasn't in charge until I started drinking, and that was mostly as a joke. Except Screamer said it, and we already said no take backs-"

"Hang on," Nag said, their head racing with mental mathematics. Jack stopped, and deigned to give the team's more talkative black dressed woman a glance. "You're like, forty," the Night Hag said.

"Thirty six," Jack said, feigning being hurt.

"So if the Slaughterhouse 9 has been going since at least 1987," Nag said, moving their hands about to touch at their cheeks and some vague and imagined calendar in front of them.

"Nineteen eighty five," Bonesaw chirped up, setting their juice carton back on the table.

"Eighty five?"

"That doesn't count," Jack said, waving a finger.

"It totally counts," Bonesaw replied. "Psychosoma and King teamed up eighty five, and that means I joined the team on the 20th anniversary!"

"Well I guess it kind of counts," Jack said. "Good girl Riley," Jack said, administering a little pat to Bonesaw's head before she could get back to her juice.

"I get that," Night Hag remarked, "But doesn't that mean you were like, thirteen?"

"Twelve," Jack said proudly.

"Twelve?" Nag asked, skeptical.

"I joined when I was six!" Bonesaw said, her little plastic straw kept to one corner of her mouth.

"But you're twelve," Nag said.

"And?"

"And that means its less weird than Jack just sort of... doing this since before I was born," Nag said.

"Twelve," Hookwolf scoffed, halfway to cracking another beer before the tiniest of nicks was cut into the side, enough to let the can spray a wet mess across the neo nazi turned homeless serial killer's bare chest.

"Don't get drunk before we get to Boston!" Jack snapped, clicking the can opener back into place in the little swiss army knife hanging from his keyless key chain.

"I'm not gonna get drunk," Hookwolf said, lifting his lips up to press them against the little leak in his can.

"Don't. Being drunk and going on killing sprees doesn't mix. I don't know how Empire Heil Hitler did things, but we're sober killers these days."

"These days?" Nag asked.

"We don't talk about the 90s," Jack said, with the most dignity he could manage on such short notice, not much considering the three days worth of hair growth that had turned his debonair beard into a simpsonian mess.

"What happened in the 90s?" Nag asked, their curiosity piqued.

"Ooh, I know!" Bonesaw said, raising her hand.


	12. The Nine-Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1985 a crack team of serial killers were assembled to commit crimes. These men and women promptly killed their leader and escaped to the United States freeway. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if noone else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...

[MEDIA=youtube]wyz_2DEah4o[/MEDIA]

We're back in 93. Young Jacob Slash was a couple months short of 18 and his wannabe beard wasn't enough for one determined police officer. Of course, by that point in the night Jacob couldn't open a packet of chips, let alone a butterfly knife, and the Guy wasn't really up for anything other than singing. Two of the smoothest talking killers Stateside and they'd gone and gotten locked in the drunk tank.

"Looks like we really in a pickle now Mr Jack sir," the Guy said, hands up against the bars of the cell.

"Stay calm Nice Guy, we're not done for just yet," Jacob said, nerves of steel fighting against the blinding headache his evening of tequila had left him.

"But Mr Jack, one look at a wanted poster and we done for. Well, you're done for. Nobody's going to recognise me. But if we don't get out of here by lunchtime, they gonna hang that Genoscythe girl!"

"I know Guy, but we can't do anything about that from inside these cells. Where's Sally when you need her..."

"Right here, boss," Sally said, her voice appearing from out of thin air.

"Sally!" the Guy said.

"How long have you been listening in?" Jack asked.

"Long enough," Sally replied. "You talk in your sleep, Guy."

"You'd know," the Guy said.

"Time for that later girls," Jack said. "Listen, Sally, whatever you do, you're gonna have to do it fast, Genoscythe is going to hang at noon."

"On my way. Get your butts ready boys."

Jack and the Guy glanced out of their cell. One guard stood guard, all but asleep in his chair, keys dangling off his belt. His walkie talkie crackled into life, and the guard fumbled about for it. The voice of Sally carried through the air. "Trooper Crrrzzchchchck, over?"

"Control this is Trooper Carl, could you repeat that, over?"

"Trooper Carl, this is control, boys at the top say they need you to check a face on that O' Malley deal from last week. We're sending an officer down, over."

"Control, what's the ETA on that, over."

The door swung open, a tall black officer striding in, a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, dyed blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.

"Officer Kelly Jones here to take over guard duty," she said, feet smartly clacking together as she saluted him.

The guard stood to his feet, looking the officer over.

"There a problem sir?" the officer said, lowering her sunglasses to shoot him a steely eyed glance.

"Didn't know we were letting women on the force is all," the guard said, a nervous smile on his face.

"Plenty of women on the force," the officer said, face straight and back straighter.

The guard's eyes narrowed, and his lips were seconds away from saying something when the officer's boot shot up into the guard's groin, clacking uselessly against a plastic cup. The guard looked up into her sunglasses, and with a resigned sigh she doofed him one in the face, knocking his head back into the wall and cracking the officer's sunglasses. He slumped back into his chair, and in an instant the officer had the keys from his belt.

"Morning boys," Sally said, tossing her broken Ray Bans off into the corner of the room.

"Love me a girl in a uniform," the Guy said with a shake of his head.

"Careful," Sally said, "Else we'll have to put you in solitary."

"Time enough for that later girls," Jack said. "We've got to get out of here. There's a serial killing mass murderer that needs our help. If we don't get to the centre of town by noon, Genoscythe is going to hang, and let me tell you, there's gonna be a lot of dry eyes in that audience."

"But how we gonna get there?" the Guy said. "There just ain't time!"

Jack snapped his fingers, once, twice, and again, a confused look on his face.

"Is that the jazz?" Sally asked.

"I think that's beat poetry," the Guy said.

"Listen," Jack said. "Guy just said something that got me thinking. Say that again Guy."

"I think that's beat poetry?" the Guy said, one eyebrow raised.

"No, before that," Jack said, waving him off.

"There just ain't time!" the Guy said.

"Of course, time!" Jack span on his heels, seizing Sally by the arms. "Sally, can you get Nicholas on the line? I think I have a plan that just might work."

"Ok boss," Sally said, one hand held to her head like she was holding an invisible rotary phone. "But whatever it is, you better hurry!"

[MEDIA=youtube]wyz_2DEah4o[/MEDIA]


	13. Florida, The Nine-Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Partying.

"Ooh, I love this one," came Guy's ever giddy voice. "Mind turning it up Sally?"

[MEDIA=youtube]MDceigcLvMM[/MEDIA]

The sunset had come and gone, leaving only the gentle electric lights of the pool and the lanai. Mosquitoes slowly danced about in the air as they froze to death long before they could reach the entrancing whine of the bug zapper.

"How did we live without you, Melania?" Jack laughed, letting his head sink just a little further into the icey waters of the backyard pool.

"Becoz you nevor hod me," Melania said in her put upon accent, her head rolling as the great blood stained hands of her lover kneaded every inch of stress from her shoulders.

"This is the first time the thermostat's been below 95 in months," the man at the liquor cabinet turned impromptu bar remarked, pausing in his careful assemblage of Jack's martini.

"Yes, vell," Winter said, her voice trailing off into a little shudder as a thumb thicker than bratwurst traced the bumps of her spine.

"How's about we give up on the whole killing everyone thing and just, go on holiday like this all the time?" the man at the liquor cabinet suggested, before a benailed hand stole Jack's martini away.

"Who's to say we can't do both?" Sally said through a mouthful of cocktail.

"No more getting drunk on the job," Jack warned. "We're not doing that again."

"But you're so cute when you're drunk," Sally whispered, the words curling from one ear to the next. "You keep making eyes at every little republican boy in an office shirt. It's adorable."

"Is that why you keep killing them?" the man at the cabinet asked, busying himself with Jack's replacement cocktail, scooping a little snow off of the ground to serve as ice.

"We were going to kill them anyway..." Sally said, pointedly pretending not to notice the little look she was getting from the Nine's least threatening of members, pretending to study Crimson's comically muscled features instead.

"Can I get another of those king prawns?" Psychosoma asked, and the little scampering rascal holding his drink set it down and dragged his way off towards the barbeque, where another knife-fingered and wrung out monkeylike thing of a man delicately tended to sizzling seafood skewers and tuna steaks.

"One for me," the man at the drinks cabinet said, setting a little umbrella into a whiskey tumbler of tequila and salt. "Giving up on the whole Kosher thing, Mr Soma?"

If Psychosoma had heard him, he didn't give a sign.

"I thought you were going Kosher again, Psycho?" Sally remarked.

"Then He shouldn't have made it so tasty. Anyone else missing Breed?" Psychosoma asked of the others, and Jack glanced over at the starved physique of the man, lounging about in a too large pair of swimming trunks tied as tightly as they could about his teeny waist.

"No," Jack said flatly.

"No?" Sally asked. "Those little things were delicious."

"They crawled out of his ass," Jack said.

"Sure didn't taste like ass," the stranger with the cocktail said, sauntering over towards Jack. "A little garlic, a little butter, a little herbs du provence, a sprinkling of grated parmesan."

"Don't," Sally said. "You'll have me drooling."

The man stopped briefly to give Sally the slightest of touches, just on the shoulder, before leaning down to rest the absurd alcoholic concoction by Jack's ear, at the very edge of the pool. For the briefest of seconds it was there, and then in a little blur of white and purple the cocktail was gone.

"Chuckles!" Jack roared, with a shake of his fist.


	14. Brockton Bay, the Nine-ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That wacky nine.

"Can someone please tell Hitler to fuck off for me?"

"Please try to take this seriously," the grown man dressed as a Nazi Viking said through the fake beard of his costume.

"Jawohl mein herr," the Butcher said.

"Please. We don't even do that."

"Ja, because saluting would be too nazi."

"Can we try to be civil gentlemen," Marquis began, crisply adding an "And ladies," that did nothing to fix the scowl on the Butcher's face. "Now, Allfather has raised the Slaughterhouse 9 being in town as a concern, and I would like to know why."

"They are a group of degenerate mercenaries from the midwest that specialise in assassination and mass murder," Allfather said, his voice a touch... off? Was that a fake german accent? "A brute squad dispatched by those foolish enough to consort with their type. They will bring ruin and slaughter to our fair city, and it is in your own best interest to listen when I say that you must not offer them a single penny."

"Didn't you hire us?" the man with the camera said.

"I've never heard of them," said Butcher.

"Really? We'll have to try harder," the man with the camera remarked.

"I have," Marquis said.

"Thank you!" the man with the camera said, briefly focusing on Marquis' features before clumsily zooming back out to get a better shot of the sharply dressed man in his chair.

"Supposedly, they've been active since 1987," said Marquis.

"85," the man with the camera corrected.

"They are small time assassins with a few heavy hitters," Marquis pronounced, with all the tell tale signs of an American trying to sound English. Not that Sally would know anything about that. "Avoiding treading on the toes of the Protectorate for the most part. But I've heard horror stories, and I want to know if they are true."

"What does das boyrow of intelligence tell you?" Butcher asked, and there was a sound like boots being put on a table. The man with the camera refocused on hir, giving a good enough glance at the woman's costume, seemingly constructed entirely from teeth and fishnets.

"I like her," the man with the camera said, talking over Allfather's maddened and innacurate proclamations of the Slaughterhouse's inferiority. "Shame about her costume though."

"Hir apparently," Sally corrected.

"Hir?" the man asked.

"The current leader is one Jack Slash," Allfather said, droning on again.

"According to Jack's notes at least," Sally said, flicking through sheets of poor handwriting and poorer photography.

"Shame about hir costume? Too much teeth, too much cleavage, too much skin."

"Young, some small charisma. Winter, a former arms dealer from Russia, reduces the temperature around her. Crimson, increases his strength by drinking blood, Screamer, a woman whose voice carries for a mile," Allfather continued.

"They sound pathetic," said the Butcher.

"I like it," Sally remarked, wishing the man could hold the camera steady for five seconds.

"Well you would."

"Well I do."

"Psychosoma," Allfather continued, raising his voice a touch. "A master limited by line of sight. Nice Guy, a stranger that poses no real threat,"

"I really don't," the man with the camera said.

"You do," Sally said.

"Don't."

"They sound pathetic," the Butcher said again, hir voice raised.

"These degenerates have been killing my men for the last week, and we haven't seen so much as a trace!" Allfather growled, and there was a thump from a fist against a table.

"Can't imagine why," the man with the camera said.

"Shhh," Sally whispered, just for him.

"Well they're Nazis. It doesn't even count as an atrocity."

"It absolutely counts."

"Whatever you say Sally."

Allfather slammed the table again, raising his voice just a touch more. "Zey are pathetic. Zey are beneath notice. Zeir powers are beneath notice, and every time someone such as yourself thinks zat zey win!"

Half a block away the rest of the gang was snoring in their tents. Half a mile away, a viking was calling her beneath notice. And a mile away or so, her song was on the radio again.

[MEDIA=youtube]UQ6LGrr8iEg[/MEDIA]

"Zey are... What's zat noise?" Allfather said, and Sally caught herself mouthing along. Maybe they wouldn't quite catch on.

"The Vengaboys?" the man with the camera said.

"Is that the Vengaboys?" the Butcher asked aloud.

"I just said that," the man with the camera said.

"That's the Vengaboys," Sally said, embarrassed. "Sorry everyone."

"Well stop listening to music at work if it's going to distract you," the man with the camera said.

"I'm listening to everyone! One song isn't going to distract me."

"Who's this?" the Butcher asked.

"Screamer," said Sally.

"Do you have anything better to do other than make us listen to bad music?" Marquis said, but Screamer twisted the word bad into the word good for bad measure.

"Vee could go back to killing das Nazis?" Screamer said, in a reasonable approximation of the Butcher's voice.

"Den Nazis," the man with the camera corrected.

"Die Nazis," Allfather corrected.

"Ach nein," Screamer wined, in a flawless rendition of Allfather's wonderful neo nazi tone. "Mein name is Allfather and nobody told me I was going to be killed by an ethnically and sexually diverse cast of serial killers. Help me, my fellow exemplars of freedom and liberty!"

"Don't presume to toy with me!" Allfather spat.

"Don't presume to toy with me!" Sally repeated.

"Insolent woman," Allfather snapped.

"What was that?" the man with the camera asked.

"He just called me an insolent woman," Screamer replied.

"Well tell him he needs a better neck guard," the man with the camera said.

"My boyfriend just told me to tell you you need a better neck guard," Sally said, smiling.

Allfather stood up from his seat, pulling a knife from his boot. Which was a touch odd considering the man was supposed to be able to make the things.

"Can you hold this camera?" the man with the camera asked.

"Where is he?" Allfather asked, dropping that fake germanic accent.

"Who?" Marquis asked calmly.

"There's a stranger in here!" Allfather barked, slowly stepping away from the table.

"Where?" the man asked.

"Behind you!" Sally called, trying not to laugh as the Odin impressionist turned this way and that.

The man tapped him on his shoulder, and Allfather turned to face him, horror writ on his face.

"Only me," the man said.

"I thought..." Allfather began, worried.

"Can I have that knife?" the man asked.

"Its him!" Sally yelled.

"Oh no it isn't," the man said, wrapping his hand around Allfather's wrist, slowly guiding the villain's blade back towards his own throat, leaning his head in to whisper. "Ich werde sie ins Valhalla sehen."

"What?" Allfather asked.

"Seine Deutsch ist schlecht," Sally admitted, reaching across her desk for a little bit of water. Blood spurted like a New York fountain, splashing all across the table and all down Marquis' top. The impeccably dressed man took a sip from his glass.

"Hey Sally," the man said, bending down just out of sight of the camera. "I don't even think this beard is real..."

"Shit. Shit. It's her!" Guy said.

"Her?" Sally said. "I thought she was pregnant?"

"Well she isn't pregnant anymore!" Guy said, poking his head up above the table like a nervous meerkat. "Guess this only counts as one Nazi then?" he asked the camera.

"Guess so," Sally said.

"We're blaming this on Marquis, right?" Guy said. "Right?"

"Pardon?" Marquis asked, soaked head to toe in the blood of a Nazi princess.

"Hey Mark, can you hold this knife?" Guy asked.


	15. Your Ami, Florida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bum bum bum, bum badump a dump.

[MEDIA=youtube]9HtHEgINHO0[/MEDIA]

Sally Funf jangled the ice at the bottom of her empty cocktail, mouth moving along with the words of some song or other from decades ago that she could only half remember. Retirement was going exceptionally well. Enough kahlua for another decade. Enough gasoline to drive up to Washington if they wanted a change of scenery for mosquito season. Then again, this world was a smidge short on midges after that darling little girl went and stole them all for that whole save the world business.

Little late there, Sally thought, pouring the little bit of melt water left in her glass onto the ashen outline of some poor man or another that had been left on the roof. Maybe the point was saving humanity as a concept? She couldn't see the point of saving that, but then again she wasn't exactly the most empathatic of people. She might well have even been a serial killer in a past life.

Across the roof, the Guy swung his shoulders from one side to the other, lost in a world of music only he and his darling Sally could hear, keen eyes focused on his ball. Another practice swing, and then another. An easy hole across the rooftops. The hard part was all the stairs down and back up again, but when the whole point of the thing was wasting time all the fussing about in between playing the game was more of a pleasant addition instead of an unwelcome filler. The Guy swung, the golf club soaring out of his hands, out across the gap and straight into the last intact window in the next luxury hotel over.

"Bored," he said, kicking his golf ball off of the little metal tee he'd gone to all the effort of hammering into the roof.

"Bored?" Sally whispered, the words carrying across the short span between them.

"Bored," the Guy said.

"Well don't be bored then," Sally said, lobbing her glass at a seagull perched at the roof's edge. Her aim was a little off, and the seagull gave her an odd little look as the expensive and far too shallow cocktail glass soared off down thirty stories of derelict building. "Be drunk. Be a dear," she said, waving a hand towards the bar.

"A dear?"

"Be a dear and get me another bloody belini, I feel practically sober."

The Guy sulked and slumped and lurched his way across the rooftop towards the bar, kicking a pool chair out of his way as he went.

"What's got to you darling?" Sally asked.

The Guy grabbed another pool chair, tossing it out into the scummy green water of the pool. "I can't just spend every night drunk with a beautiful woman on the burned out rooftops of the city formerly known as Miami looking out at across a landscape of corpses and ruins..."

"Darling?" Sally asked, sitting upright, sunglasses raised in horror.

"Ok, when you put it that way..." the Guy said.

"I should think so," Sally said, settling back down. "And get that seagull while you're up. Damned thing is giving me the eye."


	16. Crimson

Meet Crimson.

[MEDIA=youtube]OKRJfIPiJGY[/MEDIA]

"Hello!" says Crimson, in his trench coat that he saw in Bladerunner.

Crimson is white, male, and straight. He wouldn't like being called that. He prefers being called normal. That's what being normal is for some people. He might be a psychopath, but he doesn't think that makes him less normal than he would be if he wasn't white, male, or straight. The rest of the Slaughterhouse 9 aren't really normal, he thinks. Sure, its weird to kill people and drink their blood through his skin in a sort of Aztec ritual to briefly gain their strength, but liking boys seems an awful lot weirder.

Crimson likes girls.

Crimson likes girls, that fit his definition of girls.

Screamer is a little too black, not that Crimson would say anything about that but it just sort of feels wrong. There wouldn't be anything wrong with not liking blondes. Why, Crimson likes blondes, even dyed blondes like Screamer. Just not Screamer. There's nothing wrong with Crimson's ideal girl being white. So Screamer might look at him every now and again, but he's not interested.

Nyx is a little too butch, not enough of a girl for any man to be attracted to. Not that there's anything wrong with strong women, Crimson loves Alien and Aliens as much as anyone else, but she just doesn't look like a girl should. He knows there's a word for women like her, the sort of word men in the films he watches throw around whenever a woman isn't really receptive to flirting. He might call her it as a joke at some point. After all, it's not like she is one. She just looks like one.

What about Winter? Winter isn't American. She's an illegal immigrant, and Crimson knows just how bad that is. Winter isn't quite blonde, her hair is more of a white, and Crimson really prefers women with blonde hair. She's a powerful woman, self employed, militaristic. She wears dresses when she wants to, but she'll wear flak armour when she wants to wear flak armour. She has an accent, and Crimson can't normally stand an accent. If they came to America, why can't they speak the language properly? She likes guns. That's not a very womanly thing to like. She breaks all his laws about what makes a woman a woman, but not in a way that seems to cost her that femininity so important to a real woman.

So why does he like her, and why does she like him?

Crimson isn't a real man. He's thin. He can't grow a beard. He can't grow a chest of hair. He's small. He knows that these are the reasons why real women don't like him. And they don't have anything in common either. She's a child soldier who was forced to care for herself from a young age, he's a latchkey kid. She killed all her friends, he never had any. She was taught how to use guns, he learned how to use swords.

It's probably because he's a vampire. She only likes him because he can turn into an eight foot monster by staining his skin in the blood of his enemies.


	17. The Bar

Ned gritted his mandibles, four eyes nervously scanning his reflection. Not that he really needed to seeing as he hadn't gotten a zit since the first time his face was burned off. The sad little mohawkish tuft of hair that he still had had been diligently combed into an undercut of sorts by the claws of one of Psychosoma's little monsters, and now the monster busied itself cleaning its claws off in the pot of barber's disinfectant.

"What do I say if-" Ned started, his voice gruffer than he'd ever hoped.

Psychosoma glanced up from his hairdresser's waiting room couch magazine. "What do you say if what?"

"If someone asks what I do for a job?"

"Well you can't say you're unemployed," said Jack, checking himself in the next mirror along, carefully trimming away the stubble from his neck. "Say you're a student."

"Why can't the boy say he's unemployed?"

"Because he's too nervous to be some cool drifter like me," Jack said, grinning. "He's just some sad runaway whose parents threw him out for being gay. I'd buy him a drink out of pity and start looking for the first excuse to go talk to someone else."

"So I say I'm a student?" Ned chirruped.

"Or a stunt double if you want to explain why you still smell like a hog roast," Psychosoma suggested.

"Are there gay stunt doubles?" said Jack.

"Are there monster students?" said Psycho.

"Case 53s, surely," Jack said, one hand against his chest in mock horror.

"It's okay. I'm a monster," Ned said, the venom sack in his neck bulging a little. He puffed it out a little bit more, tilted it a little bit to the right. Sort of like an Adam's Apple? The skin of the sack had finally grown thick enough to hide the awkward cartoon green glow of the digestive enzymes.

"Just because you look like a monster doesn't make you a monster," Psycho said, and the monster that had once been a hairdresser gave Ned the slightest of pats on his shoulder. "Now killing people for fun..."

"Not helping Psycho," Jack cut in.

"I'm not a therapist, Jacob."

"You're not a hairdresser either..."

"What was that?" Psycho said, and the hairdresser monster took a step back from Ned.

"I said you're not a smart dresser either. No man is going to want Snidley Whiplash in his dad's hand me downs."

"Well maybe next time you could not kill the only tailor in town."

Ned fidgeted beneath the barber's blanket. "Am I done now?"

"Yes yes," Psycho said, man and monster waving their hands in unison. Ned stood, the cape dropping away from his slight frame to expose a set of denim jeans and a leather jacket, sleeves torn off more for the practicality of fitting four hands through than for fashion.

"Looking great Ned," Psycho remarked.

"Thanks," Ned rumbled, one hand reaching back to scratch at his neck, one pair of hands tucked into his pockets. The picture of a young man.

"And now that we've wasted half the night..."

"Sorry," Ned rumbled.

"It's not your fault we lost the only man that could make a decent drink around here."

"You just wanted an excuse," said Jack, all sing song as he undid another button of his Hawaiian shirt.

"And what do you do for a living, Jacob?" Psycho said, pointedly ignoring his comrade.

"Hairdresser," Jack said, straight razor in hand. "You?"

"Magician," Psycho replied, producing a top hat from thin air.

"What if I meet someone?" Ned asked, and Jack chuckled a little. "I mean it!" Ned croaked, and he set about checking his reflection again, turning around. No chest to speak of anymore, just muscles and a little bit of flylike hairs.

"You're a five foot insect Ned," Psycho said, examining the sleeves of his suit. "I'd be surprised if you did."

"But what if he wants to do something, and he finds out I'm not, or I don't have-" Ned began.

"Just make something up about being too advanced or something," Psycho said, waving Ned off. "You've already got four arms and acid spit. Now come along, Bar four thousand one hundred and sixty nine beckons. Some queen's probably already stolen your little republican boy Jacob."

"We weren't a thing, Milicent."

"So you keep saying," Psychosoma said, pulling a walking stick from his trouser pocket. One twirl and he was off out the door, Jack rolling his eyes as he slipped through the open door. It swung shut behind him, leaving Ned alone with the hairdresser monster.

"Thanks for the haircut," Ned said, as quiet as his engorged throat could manage.

The woman burbled, dragging herself off towards the mirror. Ned took a few awkward steps to the door, letting himself out. Outside the hairdressers, a monstrous man with a lolling tongue and a mouthfull of pointed teeth leered at Ned from the driver's seat of an airport rental car. The passenger door loomed open, Jack beckoning him in.

"We're sure they're ok with-" Ned began, the words dying on his tongues.

"With what?" Jack said, leaning past the monster driver.

"With people like me?" Ned said.

"Everybody loves monsters."

"Not that," Psycho said, scowling. "Honestly Ned, it'll be fine, we'll vouch for you, they'll all be ok with you, and we'll just kill them all if they aren't. Now get in. It's nearly eleven o clock and I'm still sober."

[MEDIA=youtube]ulPgWVC08KI[/MEDIA]


	18. Them

[MEDIA=youtube]gbrbUfYSt0E[/MEDIA]

The purple suited hero's eyes were wide with fear, and red where the black smoke seeping from the tiniest of cuts and scratches criss crossing his face had stung them. Mingled sweat and tears soaked his mask, and Murder Rat leaned in for a little lick, dragging their stitched together tongue across his eye.

"GOOOOOOOOAL!" Screamer shouted into their pointy and stretched out ears.

Murder Rat quirked their head a little, confused, their machete tipped fingers inches away from their nondescript opponent's throat.

"Squeak?" Mouse Protector said.

"The United Kingdom is gone!" Screamer half screamed, half laughed. "Brockton Bay is gone! Jack Slash did it!"

*Oh.* Mouse Protector thought. Murder Rat let the purple diamond suited superhero in their grasp slump to the floor, their attention firmly on the latest information from the Slaughterhouse's resident broadcaster. The hero made a little wriggle, getting a little distance from them before he started to get to his feet.

"Slaughterhouse: 9, Protectorate: nil!"

*We won?* Ravager thought.

*Woooooh.* Mouse Protector thought, her thoughts feeling a little deflated.

*I thought we were going to die there.* Ravager thought, more than a little disappointed.

"It's the end of the world!" Screamer screamed. "Everybody, take the afternoon off!"

"The End of the World?" Murder Rat said. They looked to the horizon. A little beam of gold plumed up into the sky, presumably indicating whatever scary world ending thing they'd just helped unleash.

Murder Rat harumphed.

"This is all your fault you know," they said, and then they slapped a clawed hand against their rattish cheek.

*What was that for?* Ravager replied, using the same hand to rub at the sore spot from where the shared hand had hit a shared spot on a shared cheek.

*For being a big meany that got us both killed, and then turned into a monster by a little girl, and then killed by another little girl.*

*Do you want me to say I'm sorry?* Ravager thought.

*No.* Mouse Protector thought. *I just want to ask,* "Do you feel Gouda bout yourself?" Murder Rat said, face scrunched up with complete seriousness.

Their shared mouth groaned.

*You smiled!* Mouse Protector thought.

*Only because you made me.* Ravager thought back.

The two of them tilted their head a little to watch the purple hero making a run for it, a little wispy trail of smoke following him.

"Are we supposed to chase him?" Murder Rat said.

"We already won." Ravager said, making them shrug.

"It might make you feel better..." Mouse Protector said, flexing their knife tipped fingers.

"I'm alright." Ravager said glumly, their snout seeming to droop a little.

*You sure?* Mouse Protector thought.

"Sure." Murder Rat said, a sigh escaping from somewhere inside them. The two watched the purple hero sprinting off into the distance, somehow managing to step into an oil slick in the middle of the road, skid a little, slip, and land on his ass. They smiled a little when he landed on his ass. They smiled a little less when something horrible started to drag him down.

"You know what would cheer us up?" Mouse Protector said, sneaking another little glance at their fingers, somehow managing to make inspecting the blood splatter on their knives look like checking out their nail polish.

*What?* Ravager thought, surlily watching the hero cling to a fire hydrant at the edge of the slick. They sniggered.

"What?" Murder Rat said through their smile.

"Giiirls." Murder Rat said, one big long grin creeping up both sides of their face.

On cue, the purple hero gasped. Murder Rat glanced back in time to catch the hero let go of the fire hydrant as it unfurled into some fine looking black dressed pale skinned long haired example of the same sex, black dress dripping into more of the oil, hair that seemed to seemlessly blend into her dress, lips and eyes painted on in that same oily black.

*Cute.* Ravager thought, maybe just a little sarcastically, watching the girl stomp and shove the purple hero into the oil pit. The girl caught them looking, and waved hello. They waved back, and watched a stray bolt of blue splatter the girl's head across the length of the street. Right. Still a warzone full of heroes that apparently hadn't gotten the message about the whole end of the world thing.

"Maybe not that girl." Murder Rat said. Another big golden plume promptly lit up the horizon.

"So, girls?" Murder Rat said, vanishing from the rooftop to the body of the last superhero they'd carved up, black smoke drifting up all wispy like from the corners of the pink costumed Ward.

*I'm not interested.*

*Sure...* Mouse Protector thought. The two instinctually stepped to one side, two halves of the same suite of enhanced senses giving them a heads up to the blast hurled their way. Blue streaked past them. So this was the one that just got the oil girl. Another gunlike crack, and with another brief vanish they were across the road, stood atop a funny looking piece of rubble Mouse had absently tagged earlier.

Some greenish brown jungle camoflage wearing cape with a red bandanna fired another fingergun's worth of brightly coloured blasts at the body Murder Rat had been perched atop of not two seconds ago, the blasts seemingly melting the body into a splatter of neon pink and blue paint, and the tiny hint of black smoke still drifting up off of the body. The bandanna man screamed, eyes wild and half rabid, finger guns akimbo as he looked about for Murder Rat.

"What did you do!" he yelled.

*Wasn't our fault.* Murder Rat thought. They'd picked up the funny looking lump of rubble by this point, careful to keep their blades from being dulled, and the moment he caught sight of them he fired off another paint ball. Another vanish, and Murder Rat was standing in the ugly pink paint blob that had been the pink ward, just about ready to lob the rock at the bandana man.

"What the hell did you do!" he yelled, blasting at the empty spot where Murder Rat had been stood. Unfortunately enough for him, by that point the bandana man was already engulfed from behind by a sort of schwarp sort of noise given form, a big ugly black cloud with a few flashing lights inside it that made the few glimpses of the bandana man Murder Rat could catch somewhat wet and meaty.

From out of the lingering afterimage of the ugly garbage disposal cloud strode a ballgown wearing girl, pale skinned, porcelain white hair, gaunt features. Her dress glid along the rubble and meat strewn street without betraying even a hint of leg beneath it. She raised a beclawed hand to her head, shielding her eyes from the distant sunset's glare as she looked right at Murder Rat.

Their shared hearts skipped a beat. The moment passed, and the white haired girl looked past them to the mushroom cloud on the horizon.

*That wasn't just me, right?* Mouse Protector thought.

*Shush* Ravager thought back, and the two of them tried to look somewhere else.

*Because that girl is fine.*

*I'm not listening to you.*

*I'm not saying she's as pretty as you.*

*Shoosh! Everyone here is a cannibal, or a murderer!*

*You know villains are my type* Mouse Protector thought, and Ravager could feel her twist their face into something resembling her old smirk.

*Shoosh. You'll get this body all sweaty or something.*

*It's the end of the world, Ravs...* Mouse Protector thought.

*Not happening!*

*We should at least thank her.* Mouse Protector thought, spinning the two of them back around.

"Hey there fellow slaughter person!" Murder Rat yelled.

The girl with the white hair glanced at them.

"Thanks!" Murder Rat said, giving a thumbs up.

The white haired girl said nothing.

*Say something!* Mouse Protector squeaked.

*What?*

*Say something, I can't think of anything!*

*You always know something to say!*

*That's because it's you! I know how to talk to you, I haven't seriously flirted with another girl since I was "Just experimenting." Say something!*

"Nice hair." Murder Rat said, their muzzle flapping open and shut. A little bit of Ravager died at hearing her voice like that. Too much of the Mouse's sweetness.

"Yes," the white haired girl said. The corner of her mouth turned up slightly.

*Keep going!*

"And... you have nice nails. Where did you get them done?"

The slight upturn was nothing to the angry glare the white haired girl shot them back.

"Sorry!" Murder Rat said, holding up their claws in front of them.

"Oh," the white haired girl said, harsh features relaxing into a resting and haughty scowl. "You too?"

They nodded.

"That brat needs to watch less Burton."

"Tell us about it..." Murder Rat said.

"She got me killed," the white haired woman said with yet another sneer.

"You too?" squeaked Murder Rat.


	19. Miasma's Basically the Best

"Look out! Miasma!" Jack shouted, pointing somewhere behind the Periwinkle Peregrine's cowl.

She flinched, just long enough for Jack to sneak the knife into her gut.

"Miasma's not even working today," Jack smiled.

The Periwinkle Peregrine gasped.

"He's off sick."

The Periwinkle Peregrine gurgled.

"Sometimes you heroes just aren't interested in banter..."

999 999 999

[MEDIA=youtube]qkaexjc-1os[/MEDIA]

999 999 999

"So then I say to her, do you mind standing still while I cut all of your friends'... all of your friends... all of the throats of your friends, and do you know what she says?" Guy said, a skip in his step and a knife in his hand. He waited patiently for the reply, leaving enough time to keep up the illusion of conversation despite his little rhetorical question.

"Sure, go ahead," Guy said, in his calmest and most welcoming tone. “Why not?”

He felt a punch on his shoulder from an invisible and otherwise undetectable hand.

"Come one. It was kind of funny," Guy said, kicking a stray can from the sidewalk, only to watch it bounce off of an invisible leg.

Another punch to his shoulder. Light. Friendly.

"A little bit funny?" Guy said, grinning. No punch came, so he could only assume his friend was willing to concede the point. "I thought it was hilarious. Let her go afterwards, made sure to hand her the knife before I did because, I mean, I'm not an idiot."

A punch to the shoulder, again.

"Ok, I'm not that much of an idiot," Guy said, an exaggerated frown creeping into his features. One short pat and another punch on the shoulder, and he was smiling his smile again.

"Talking to you is great Mia. We should do stuff like this more often."

An invisible and undetectable arm wrapped about his neck in a friendly little headlock.

“Love you too man."

999 999 999

"And so you see Jack Slash, that is why I kill capes," the man with a face that looked like someone had stuck a hatchet through it recently said, plainly, brandishing what might well have been that same hatchet.

"That's really sad," Jack said, as sincerely as he could manage in the face of yet another sad man with a dead wife who had sworn to kill everyone that reminded him of his inadequacy as a man. At least this one seemed to talk. And boy did he like to talk about his vendetta and his tragic backstory. For a seven foot tall axe murderer he'd just gone on and on.

"To avenge my dead wife, you see."

"I got that."

"Well, it's just, you're a cape too, you see," hatchet-man said, giving an equally insincere look to Jack.

"I see," Jack said, glancing down at his belt. Two kitchen knives, one barber's razor, a butterfly knife, one shoddy butcher's knife, and a kukri. Jack glanced back at the seven foot axe murderer, did a little mental calculation about the depth of the scars on the hatchet-man's face and came to the very sound conclusion that he was boned. Unless he had some sort of third hidden power that he wasn't aware of that he could use to weasel his way out of this... from inside a field that nullified powers.

"It's got to be hard," Jack ventured, clapping his hands together, taking a step backwards.

"Oh, absolutely," hatchet-man said, taking a heavy step forwards.

"Trying to kill every cape all by yourself."

"Oh definitely," said hatchet-man.

"You could maybe use some help?"

"Jack, my wife died because of a cape."

"You said."

"You kill people Jack."

"I kill capes too?" Jack pleaded.

"You kill anyone," said the hatchet-man, and Jack found his back against the wall. Well. There was always second triggering? Except he wasn't inside, and the hatchet-man didn't really seem to be ignoring him. Or lying to him. Somewhere behind hatchet-man, something glinted in the streetlight. Jack did his best not to look at it, still managing to betray the expression to hatchet-man. If Jack wasn't hallucinating, a small hatchet was bobbing around in mid air. Now if the hatchet-man actually looked, there wouldn't be much of a surprise attack... so Jack pointed at it very threateningly, his eyes wide with fake horror.

"Not going to work," hatchet-man smiled, looming over Jack, one hand lifting him by the neck and gently pressing him hard against the brick wall.

"Worth a try," Jack wheezed, grinning his most desperate of smiles. Any other circumstance and this might have been hot.

"All capes. One at a time."

The hatchet floated a little closer, and Jack caught a glimpse of tackle and an affro somewhere behind the hatchet, and one hand held to a pair of lips.

"Even you Jack," hatchet-man said, and Jack watched the naked man tiptoe closer, one step at a time, more mortified by the pendulous and unshaven swinging than by the beefy hand about his neck.

"Any last words?"

"This is Jack Slash speaking," Jack rasped. "I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values-"

The hand about his throat tightened.

"Bye Jack. Nice to meet you."

Thunk.

Hatchet-man made a funny sort of look. It wasn't quite what Jack had come to expect from a man with a hatchet sticking out of his head, but considering the cuts on the man's face...

"Ow," said the hatchet-man, reaching one hand to rub at the back of his head, with another confused look when he bonked against the blade of the hatchet. His Fezzik-esque hands let go of Jack's throat, and Jack very carefully started to step to one side, very carefully avoiding looking at the naked man awkwardly tip toeing back from the hatchet-man.

"Thanks Miasma," Jack mouthed.

"Ow!" the hatchet-man said, turning to look at Jack. Jack stood stock still.

"You ok?" Jack asked.

"It really hurts," the hatchet-man said. Out the corner of Jack's eye, the naked man vanished.

"Oh no," Jack said, doing his best impression of empathy. "Can I see it?"

The hatchet man pulled his hand away, red with blood, and Jack feigned a wince.

"That looks really bad."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Jack said, nodding his head. "That's going to leave a hell of a scar..."

"I just want to avenge my dead wife," the hatchet-man said.

"I hear you," Jack said.

"I just want to kill capes," the hatchet-man said, looking to be on the verge of tears.

"Well..."

999 999 999

"Hey Miasma?" Chuckles asked the thin air, speaking very very slowly.

After what seemed like a minute, a hand tapped him on the shoulder once.

"Which slushy should I get?" Chuckles said, stopping to take a breath in between each word.

Chuckles counted to one hundred and twenty, tapping his clown shoes the whole while, before adding "Once for red, twice for blue."

The machine in front of him seemed to stir itself at a glacial pace. Chuckles screamed. He'd have clutched his head, but he didn't want to waste half an hour putting his hands back down. He kicked the machine. He screamed again.

A hand tapped Guy on the shoulder once. Chuckles counted to twenty, and then a hand tapped him on the shoulder again. Chuckles started to very slowly lift his hand. He'd be able to push the button in about ten minutes of clown time. Another tap on the shoulder.

Chuckles kept his hand moving. If he stopped now, he'd need to scream again. He took a deep breath.

"Both?" Chuckles asked. His finger inched closer and closer to the machine.

One tap.

"Mixed?" Chuckles asked, halfway there. He took another breath, and spoke a little slower. "Mixed?"

One tap.

"Okay," Chuckles said, starting to push the first button. This had better be worth doing this twice...

999 999 999

"I just don't know if she loves me for who I am, or if she only loves me for what I am," Crimson said, head hung.

An invisible and undetectable hand patted him on the shoulder, leaving a hand print in the sticky red.

"Thanks Miasma."

999 999 999

"I just keep thinking everyone is making fun of my accent behind my back. This is me," Winter said, flicking through the half frozen Blockbuster's horror section. "This is how I sound."

An invisible, undetectable, and very much shivering hand tapped her on the shoulder.

"Thanks Miasma."

It tapped her again, and she turned. There, floating in front of her, just in front of the floating scarf and ski coat, was a rental copy of LIFE FORCE, jittering and juttering around in time with the chatter of Miasma's teeth. She snatched it up in a second.

"Thanks Miasma!"

999 999 999

"I'm not a girl!" Ned sobbed, holding himself in his scabbed over hands. "I'm not."

An invisible and undetectable pair of hands slowly pulled him into a hug.

"I'm not..."


	20. Contrasts

"I need the bathroom," Jack said, eyes opening wide. He stepped up from his seat and slipped past a dispute between Skinslip and Hookwolf being conducted in increasingly tense sign language.

"What's up with him?" Nag asked.

"He only uses it twice a day," said Bonesaw, and she held a hand over her mouth to whisper, "Winter said it's because he's afraid of bugs in his butt."

Nag smirked, and found themself sniggering a little as they grabbed themself another lemonade from the cooler. Across the van Damsel poked at her sandwich, trying to figure out a way to grab the thing with her comically elongated claws. Nag glanced down, examining their own short and bitten off nails.

"So..." they said, to noone in particular.

"So what?" Bonesaw asked, tilting her head to one side.

"How did you end up becoming a supervillain at six?" Nag asked.

999 999 999

[MEDIA=youtube]aMA9Jnaznp4[/MEDIA]

"Ok, this is great work Chuckles," someone mumbled from inside the kitchen. Riley rubbed at her eyes, taking the stairs down one at a time.

"Honk," honked a little bicycle horn.

"And her husband isn't home yet?"

"Honk."

"Well we'll just have to surprise him won't we?"

"Honk!"

The door creaked open, and Riley saw her mother splayed across the kitchen counter, her head in the sink, a big fat clown wearing polka dots holding her hair back and a thin messy man talking to the clown. The clown poked the thin man on the shoulder, and the thin man turned to look at Riley, a horrible smile on his face, bigger and scarier than the clown's. Barely a second passed before he clapped his hands against his face.

"Oh Riley, come quick!" he said, sounding scared. "Something horrible just happened to your mother!"

"What?" Riley asked, the colour draining out of her face. "What happened to my mommy?" Riley asked.

"She slipped and fell on her kitchen knife," the thin man said.

"Honk," went the fat clown's horn.

"Knives. Don't worry, I think we can still help her!"

999 999 999

"Not telling," Bonesaw replied, smiling.

"Ok," Nag said, turning to watch Damsel taking a victorious bite out of the sandwich skewered on her finger, mouth opening and closing as the corner of the pastrami on rye slapped against her lips, barbecue sauce spilling out down her cheek. Nag grimaced.

"How'd Jack get you?" Bonesaw asked sweetly.

"You didn't share yours," they said.

"Nope," Bonesaw said, smiling in her best creepy murder child way.

999 999 999

Steam hissed from one of the boiler room's pipes, black sliding down off the sides of the boiler as Nag peeled themself out of the wrought iron, coughing up a few stray embers. Their head spun for a second or two. What had they been doing?

A hand closed around their throat. Their eyes glanced down in time to catch the combat knife plunging into their chest.

Suddenly, it was like a huge pressure was lifted off of Nag's throat. The old wooden table started to cough and splutter as Nag started to form a new pair of lungs out of wood. What were they doing?

Another shanking, and the chair was bent over the floor and sprouting hair. A hand seized the back of the chair and hefted it up, a hand around Nag's neck as it formed.

"Tut tut tut," the heroine tutted, and Nag's eyes lingered on the combat knife in the heroine's free hand. In all fairness, Nag had tried to stab her. And eat her.

"How long can you keep this up ma'am?" the visored face of the triumphant heroine said.

"Not a woman," Nag managed through the hand wrapped around their throat. Another knife to the gut, and Nag did their best to lean on the heroine.

The pipes above the heroine's head grabbed onto each other, trying not to fall while they watched the heroine kicking the body off of her, looking about for Nag's next body. They formed a set of legs and arms from bits of ceiling, and then an awkwardly long head of hair that dangled down into the heroine's field of view. She looked up just in time for Nag to drop, yelling a feral yell. Nag didn't quite catch the how of it, some sort of martial arts thing, but their ambush was spun about into a pin to the floor, a knife to Nag's throat, and another gloating look from the heroine.

The heroine smiled. Nag smiled back, dying again. They fell from the ceiling pipes before the heroine could even get to her feet, and together the two of them tumbled down, down past another splintering dead Nag, down into the blackness on the other side of the stain covered floor.

The heroine looked at Nag, mouth agape, hands pushing against the oil black stain. Nag smiled, showing their teeth.

[MEDIA=youtube]jFliQJ3ym58[/MEDIA]

One pale hand slapped against the black stained floor of the boiler room, then another, and like an elephant seal or anyone at a public pool Nag pulled themself out with a lot of awkward and indignant flopping. Oily black oil spilled off of their oily black dress as they stood up to the sound of clapping.

"Excellent performance, miss-"

"Mix," Nag cut in reflexively.

"Mix Night Hag," the voice in the shadows said, halfway to giggling. "How silly of me to assume."

"At least you didn't call me mister. Not that anyone's done that in a while..."

"Right, Mix Night Hag it is."

"It's just Night Hag," Nag said. "Or Nag for short?" they added, before the voice in the shadows could say anything back. "There were a few heroes that started calling me that so I sort of preemptively reclaimed it, and it fits anyway, since a Nag is just a horse and a Night Hag is just a Nightmare..."

999 999 999

"And then we had a talk and he offered me a spot on the team," Nag said.

"No tests?" Bonesaw asked, looking heartbroken. Damsel glared at the two of them from her seat, her travesty of a sandwich leaking all over her plate.

"Not that I know of?"


	21. Psychosoma's Last Stand

"Oh god, not another sad man with a dead wife," Psychosoma muttered into his mug, watching as the rest of the murderous nincompoops fawned over the latest member of the Slaughterhouse 9. The doll man had his head to one side, not even flinching an inch as Ned lapped at the expressionless face.

"What was that?" Shatterbird asked, before quietly sipping at her own tea.

"Nothing," Psychosoma said. What had happened to variety? Two sad white heterosexual men with dead wives, two completely mute members of the team, no, scratch that, three, Chuckles wasn't exactly much of a conversationalist without a whiteboard and a marker pen.

"Well it was clearly something."

"Could we not find someone else?"

"Something wrong with The Mannequin?" Shatterbird asked.

"It's just we've already got one. A quarter of the team are sad straight men with dead families," Psychosoma wryly replied. "Did we not have anyone else we could hire?"

"We're the Slaughterhouse 9," Shatterbird said, sounding supremely pompous and confident for someone who'd been on the team for all of a week by this point. "We don't hire anyone."

"Oh, not since we lost anyone that bothered to manage the books, no."

"We're monsters," Shatterbird said, a look of supreme evil in her one good eye.

"Well now we're monsters, but I'll remind you we used to be a business until Jac- until Jack decided to kill anyone who knew how to do the shopping. I get that we're all supposed to be all for hiring living swiss army knives but it would be nice if we could just hire another Nice Guy, someone who could go out and do the shopping for us." Shatterbird gave him a snooty look, and Psycho glanced down at her you-don't-have-to-be-crazy-to-work-here mug. "I'm sure a lady of your standing would prefer some china to this."

She placed her mug down onto a Coors beer mat. "Some tea that didn't come in a bag would be nice."

"Or some food that didn't come out of a tin?"

"Yes."

"I think Jack might just explode if you fed him anything fresher than roadkill," Psychosoma remarked, extracting a smile from Shatterbird.

"Sorry about the test," Psychosoma said, and the woman's mood dropped. "I thought it'd be funny, see."

"It wasn't," she said. "Though I can see how you'd have thought that."

Psychosoma let his eyes wander, and from across the room Jacob smiled at him. Psychosoma didn't think anything of it at first, but the way the smile lingered, the way it seemed to line up with that little smile he'd had after they'd lost Sally... it seemed to suggest that twenty years of what could have been generously called friendship was over. Psychosoma put his cup down, and stood up, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the little drop of tea at the corner of his wrinkled lips.

"The bad news is..." Jacob said, "Well. This brings us up to 10 members. We're going to have to make a few cuts. Psycho-"

"His name is Jacob," Psychosoma said.

"We're just going to have to let you go," Jacob finished, face turning red.

"Although he hates it if you call him that. He doesn't like it if you call him Bilbo either, even if he grew up in a hobbit hole."

"Do you understand what that means?" Jacob asked, through gritted teeth.

Psychosoma looked past him, eyes skirting over the assembled strangers. "He's afraid of using public bathrooms, if any of you want to give him trouble about that. Do try to get your digs in while you can, he'll kill you all as soon as he gets bored."

"You're being replaced, Psycho."

"I know Jacob. And you know I hate being called Psycho. It makes me sound like I'm some sort of punk wearing all that ghastly leather."

"You're being replaced!" Jacob repeated.

"Oh go on then. I'm not afraid of you, Jake." There was a brief snigger from the clown. Good. At least someone was having fun. "He doesn't like Jake either. Jake Slash. That's a name for a gigolo. Or a thirty year old virgin."

Crimson chuckled, and Jacob's face scrunched up a little.

"I don't know why you're laughing Crimson, you'll be next."

"What?" the great red brute rumbled.

"You've gone and seen him without that ghastly stubble of his, you're too dangerous to live."

In a flash, Jacob had a knife to his neck.

"I was going to give you a fighting chance," Jacob whispered, furious. "Befitting of a founding member of our merry little band of misfits."

Psychosoma stuck his tongue out, and blew the last raspberry of his life.


	22. HOT DIGGITY

So, anyone that doesn't want to read something stressful, uncomfortable, and unpleasant featuring Burnscar should instead just skip the section in spoilers and read some wholesome content of Burnscar and Shatterbird just sitting on a couch together and being snug.

[Spoiler]  
[MEDIA=youtube]1jVECp5Dzp4[/MEDIA]

Mimi shivered, clutching herself tight beneath her blanket. She couldn't feel her fingers, but she knew they were still caked in... in...

"Right, that's the last challenge done," Jack Slash said, dusting the snow off of his mittens.

Oh god, Mimi thought, wishing she could close her eyes.

"We all thought you had it in you," Crawler rumbled, breath steaming out of his nostrils.

"Yes," Shatterbird said, reaching a hand down towards her. Mimi flinched away from it, but Shatterbird didn't stop, and soon she was running her hand through Mimi's knotted hair. Mimi's heart pounded in her chest, her eyes refusing to blink.

"Welcome to the Nine," Jack Slash said, crouching down to bring his eyes level with her. Cold eyes, staring at Mimi through his ski mask. "Have you thought of a name?"

"Huh?" Mimi said, and she couldn't even see her breath.

"Have you thought of a name?" Shatterbird said, working her fingers out of a knot.

"What's wrong with Mimi?" Mimi said, her voice so small and far away from her cold body.

"You're not going to scare anyone calling yourself Mimi." Jack Slash said.

"Says Jack," Crawler said.

"Says the man who wanted to call himself Ned. Jack is a great name. Jack the ripper. Jack-"

"Jack Sparrow," Crawler said, a great big purple tongue slapping against one of his eyes to lick the snow from his face. Eyes. Mimi shuddered at the stray thought. So many eyes. So very cold.

"Funny," Jack said, and he sounded so far away. So very far away, and so very cold.

*** *** ***

"Wake up sleepy head. Jack says I'm not allowed to do this to people without consent anymore."

"Huh?" Mimi said, staring straight into a light bulb.

"Well, I'm not supposed to do it to friends. Hi Mimi!"

Mimi could almost make out a shape among all the light. A head of curly blonde hair. Bonesaw. Mimi reached out with her hands, and found herself struggling against leather straps. Mimi reached out with her power. Bonesaw. No heat. No fire. Bonesaw. Nothing to take her out of the moment.

"I'm Bonesaw. Jack said I have to make you better."

Mimi took another shallow breath, and another.

"We couldn't save your hair," Bonesaw said, smiling. Mimi's heart jumped. The little girl grabbed the lamp and pulled the harsh staring spotlight down towards Mimi's face, flicking the light off, leaving only a polished surface. Mimi caught a glimpse of her ruined hair. Mimi's mouth hung open, her eyes threatening to tear up.

"Too much blood and mud stuck in it, so Jack fixed it for you. I can fix your breathing for you?" Bonesaw said, tilting her head to one side.

Mimi said nothing, trying to keep herself from screaming. Not her hair too. Not her hair.

"I could fix your scars..."

"No!" Mimi yelled.

"Are you sure?"

"Please..." Mimi said, hands tight against the straps holding them down, the words so hard to force out. "Please please don't."

"Really sure?"

"Don't touch them!" Mimi said, swearing she was digging an even bigger grave for herself.

"They're just scars..."

"They're mine!" Mimi pleaded. "They're all I have!"

"Fine," Bonesaw said, pouting. "Should I not fix your lungs either?"

Mimi went quiet.

"Smoking kills people," Bonesaw said, taking a few steps around the table. "And you're gonna die unless I replace your lungs. And since I'm gonna be inside you... do you want anything else?"

"I-"

"I heard some people want bigger chests?" Bonesaw said, picking up a power drill. "Crawler didn't want any chest..."

"I..."

"Are you really sure you don't want anything Mimi?" Bonesaw said, pulling the trigger on the power drill to spin it for a second or two. "Because you only have to ask..."

Mimi shook her head, her mouth refusing to close.

"Are you really really really sure?" Bonesaw said, nodding her head down towards Mimi's feet. "You don't want me to fix anything?"

Mimi leaned her head forwards, and saw her body laid out bare on the slab, and had to fight to keep herself from screaming again.

*** *** ***[/Spoiler]

"Burnscar," Mimi said, looking up from the grisly pages of From Hell and towards the woman she'd been leaning on.

"Hmmm?" came Shatterbird's reply, sipping her tea delicately as she half read her book.

"If I need another name,"

"Yes?"

"Can I be Burnscar?"

"Of course you can," Shatterbird said, bumping her foot against Mimi's on their shared footrest. "You can be whoever you want to be."

"Okay," Mimi said, pressing her head back against Shatterbird's shoulder.

"Burnscar?" Shatterbird said.

"Yes?"

"My tea's gone cold again."

"Oh," Mimi said. Shatterbird lifted her china teacup up above Burnscar's head, and Burnscar pulled a lighter from her jacket pocket, and lifted it up towards the cup, and with a click and a woosh of fire, the cup was soon spitting and bubbling.

"Thank you Burnscar," Shatterbird said, giving her foot another little bump.


	23. Bruno

Warning. This is the penultimate short and contains a lot of censored slurs and swears, a fascist, and the same old bucket of feels this whole story's been looking at really. Just skip to the final one. That one has a fart joke and a laugh track.

[MEDIA=youtube]rXuvdeEC5y8[/MEDIA]

Hookwolf had one last sign for this piece of s***.

"Go f*** yourself, Buffalo Bill!" Hookwolf snarled, lifting one finger to the n***** b**** playing at dressing up as a white girl.

The sound of music from the driver's speakers grew louder and louder, almost covering up the bratty little girl as she had to add in another cry of "Language," for the fiftieth time.

"No, f*** him," Hookwolf barked back at her, and Bonesaw's eyes twitched. "F****** n****** thinks I'm some kind of f****** q****? F*** him!"  
Skinslip backed away, his rotting face resuming a rigor mortis frown. Hookwolf's eyes lingered as the rest of his skin started to pull into his core. He raised a fist, and Skinslip raised his hands, cowering.

"Well I thought you were," Night Hag remarked.

Hookwolf had to fight to let his mouth stay intact. "F*** you too."

"Just a feeling," Night Hag said.

"Just a feeling?" Hookwolf said, his lungs halfway to dissolving into knives. He turned to face her, her eyes barely level with his pecs. She set Damsel's can of Seven Up down, looking straight at his pecs.

"Swastika t***," she said. "That's Dark Knight Returns, right?"

Hookwolf nodded slowly, a tight feeling in his chest worsened by the growing emptyness around his core as the daggers pushed their way out.

"And that was a woman," Night Hag said, stepping slowly away from Damsel's seat.

"So what?" Hookwolf said. She was strong. She was aryan. So what if she looked like a d***, she was powerful.

"So you got the same tattoos as a woman?" Night Hag asked.

"It's for a joke," Hookwolf snarled out, the words getting harder and harder to form. Just another way of showing allegiance to the cause. Same as the rest of the tattoos. She was powerful. She was comfortable showing her body. "The f*** makes you think you know me?"

"I was you," Night Hag scoffed, smiling, hands folding across her chest. "I used to go and read about Nazis. When I was in school. Nazis are cool. They've got nice uniforms and they're all handsome perfect people with perfect blonde hair."

"Notta Nazi!" Hookwolf managed, fighting to keep his jaw from being pulled apart into hooks, panting as he freed enough of his throat to breath again.

"I wasn't a Nazi, I just thought they were cool, and all knew what to do with all those freaks. Because everybody knows being a freak is just the worst. Everybody's joking and saying just how gay it would be if you were gay or some ugly freak in a dress. They're all freaks and all the freaks are already calling you gay, and you know you're not a freak."

"Tranvestite b****."

"Language!" Bonesaw yelled, throwing her playing cards uselessly against Hookwolf's face. The queen of hearts lodged itself in a gap between his jaw and his nose where the skin gave way to blades.

"You don't have to be a boy, Bruno!" Night Hag said, smiling through watering eyes. Hookwolf's fist went for her throat, and her body slapped against the side of the RV. Hookwolf brought his foot down hard. Once, twice, and again. Bonesaw's seat threw her off of it as it stood up, the seatbelt buckle forming into a semblance of a pale nose, the belt splitting apart into strands of black hair.

"You don't have to be some sad angry fascist boy who couldn't even begin to think that maybe everyone was right, and maybe he was some kind of freak," Night Hag said, tears in her eyes. He dug his fingers into her gut, and she gasped, mouth opening wide to show off a black tongue and a set of black gums. "It's okay," she said, ink spilling from her mouth. "You don't have to be him. You don't have to be a him."

He dragged his hooks out. A gutfull of ink spilled out across the RV's floor, soaking the metal of Hookwolf's feet. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her t**** a** even if it took a thousand times, even if he had to pull every inch of her from the road to do it. Where was she going to be next? The fridge? He span about to see her vomit up a can of beer, and Skinslip standing in front of her, holding a cape of skin from one side of the RV to the other. With one swipe of his claws, Hookwolf tore it in half. With another he threw Skinslip aside, and then he stormed forwards towards-

SHWOOOORP!!!


	24. The End

A bunch of ethnically and sexually diverse voices carried on their casual chit-chat outside the bathroom door. Jack turned the page of his newspaper, perused the latest Nemi, and did his best not to think about insects. White elephants. No such thing as Breed. Breed was dead. No more bugs hiding in the toilet. He'd already flushed it once for safety. And Screamer was dead too. No more big sister listening in to every secret. No more Psychosoma treating him like a child. No more Crimson punching him on the shoulder and telling him all about girls. No more Nyx. No more Gray Boy. No. More. King. 

And no more Philip.

Jack let out a forlorn toot.

[MEDIA=youtube]hSeXojvzLpc[/MEDIA]

No more Philip, Jack thought, frowning. He'd get over it.

Long uncomfortable minutes of cleaning passed before Jack at last stood up. He zipped up his trousers, fastened his belt of knives about his waist, reached underneath it to double check his fly was actually done up. He washed his hands, sprayed a little air freshener for the sake of the next mass murderer, and immediately regretted the choking lungful of perfumed air. Lavender. Just like Nyx. Except Nyx was long dead. They were all dead. Apart from Philip.

He took a moment to check his reflection in the tiny mirror of the RV's bathroom. Still frowning. Frowning with five O' clock shadow all the way down his neck.

There was more shouting going on outside from the rest of the Nine, nothing that sounded too dangerous. He had the time for this. Not everything in Jack's life had to be sticks and carrots and mass murdering donkeys. Personal grooming was still a luxury all his own.

Jack felt his neck, taking a little pleasure in that awkward little spiky feeling as he dragged his finger from Adam's apple to the very tip of his beard proper. His free hand habitually reached towards the shaving razor at the back of his belt. Would it be better to leave it, and show up to Accord's lair without the proper grooming? Or to cut it all off and show up with a well trimmed face and an untidy and untucked shirt. Which was going to mess with his head more?

SCHWOOORP!!!

That sounded a little dangerous.

Jack unlocked the bathroom door and slinked back out. The entire van's worth of mass murderers looked to him.

"I use the toilet for five minutes..." Jack said, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and a cocky smile aimed at... Hookwolf. Hookwolf seemed like the one most in need of a smug smiling at right now.

Skinslip made a little nervous glance to their right, and Jack followed their gaze to the hole blown in the side of the RV. And if that wasn't bad enough, the next car along had been obliterated too. Jack tutted. A people carrier by the look of the wreckage. Could've been a family of four coming home from vacation, could have been a single mother getting more and more desperate as she glanced around at the state of the traffic as her son waited outside the museum for her. Gone just like that.

"Couldn't you all just get along for five minutes without killing someone?"

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[MEDIA=youtube]SCQGnVrTsAM[/MEDIA]


	25. Phil

Philip squinted against the sunlight reflecting from the hood of the crashed car. Notation of distance and of angle appeared scrawled above and below in a crude imitation of Philip's handwriting. Lines traced off of the contours of the getaway vehicle and back down the road, estimating the path it had taken and lining up with the tire tracks that led from the side of the gas station garage, back into the dirt and dust, over a patch of cacti, and back onto the road.

"So driving isn't your strong suite," the woman who had called herself Screamer said.

"Pipsqueak drives better than you," said the red woman, who had yet to give her name.

Philip could see the lines connecting his fist to the red woman's chin, and from there the hand on her sleeveless jacket to keep her from falling, and the blow to her neck that would kill her, barring any further differences in her anatomy. Philip had been told that that was something to avoid, that it was wrong. It did not feel wrong. The lack of response to killing had been more unnerving than the killing itself. He had been told it would feel wrong, as sure as he had been told that the sum of the square of the sides of a right angled triangle was equal to the sum of the square of the hypoteneuse.

He doubted she would have been able to drive this far with four flat tires.

Screamer had already started to walk towards the gas station, the edge of her dress dragging along through the dust. The red woman trailed behind her, dragged in much the same way as the dress. Philip stepped to avoid the cloud of smoke trailing from the red woman, and started to follow.

The red woman knocked at the door. Once, twice, then once, then once again.

"What's the password?" came a man's voice.

"It's Nyx, let me in before I choke you?" the red woman said.

"Gabe said we had to use the password," the man said.

"Ice nine kills?" the woman who had called herself Nyx said.

The door opened. The annotations suggesting the outline of the man, his height, the height of his mouth, and the working out in the margins all faded from Philip's sight. The man appeared to still be a teenager. Pimples dotted his oily face, and his duster was untidy and poorly fitting. The man looked at Philip, and Philip said nothing.

"Is that another kid?" he asked.

"My name is Philip," Philip said.

"Crimson," the man said, holding the door open to let the women inside. "There's soda on the table. Nobody use the toilet. Breed's been in there."

Philip blinked, unsure what to say. The man who had called himself Crimson held the door for him, waiting.

"Does that mean it smells?" Philip asked.

"It means there might be bugs in there," Crimson said.

Philip took note, and stepped inside. The door closed behind him. The gas station shop had been ransacked, with shelves either emptied or thrown across the floor. The red woman, who had called herself Nyx, began to sift through some of the cans. Something scuttled out from underneath a can as Nyx lifted it, and Philip watched as the thing found another can to hide under, and another when Nyx kicked the thing's new hiding place.

"Bugs," Crimson said stepping off to somewhere behind Philip. Philip stepped away from the doorway, catching sight of another bug beneath a shelf.

"Jacob?" Screamer called.

"Here you go," Crimson said. Philip took a step back and to the side, readying a kick as he avoided... the bottle of warm soda he was about to be given. Crimson held the bottle out, giving Philip a curious look. Philip relaxed his stance, accepted the soda, and waited for the man to back off. Crimson maintained eye contact, stepping back towards the door of the shop and slowly stepping out, without once looking away from Philip.

"Jacob?" Screamer called again.

Philip took a quiet breath. He adjusted his glasses, knocked askew by the sudden change in motion.

"Stop hiding Jacob. You know full well I can hear it when you're off crying like that. Now come out. The new kid needs a soda."

Philip could hear a small noise from behind him, and he looked towards the checkout. A boy slowly stepped out from behind the checkout desk. He was short and thin, with a reddened face and a black eye. His hands were covered in band-aids, his shirt was done up to the top button, and his shorts were held up by a pair of suspenders. They looked to be a size too large for his waist, and the pockets all appeared to be full.

"Say hello Pipsqueak," Screamer said. Philip took a small step, enough that Screamer's hand missed Philip's shoulder when she went to touch him.

"Hello Pipsqueak," Philip said, unblinking.

"Hi," the boy said, and he smiled at Philip.

Philip said nothing.

"I'm Jacob," the boy said.

"This is Phil," Screamer said. "Jacob, could you open Phil's soda for him?"

Jacob reached into one of his pockets, taking a moment before pulling out a swiss army knife and retrieving the bottle opener from it. He held one hand out, and Philip handed over his soda. Jacob opened it, and handed it back.

"Now say thank you Phil," Screamer said.

"Thank you Phil," Jacob said.

Philip was careful to keep the corner of his mouth from lifting too much, but the other boy seemed to notice it, and Jacob smiled a little again.

"Funny," Screamer said. "Get yourself a soda too Jacob. Gabe's on his way."

Jacob nodded, the smile fading from his face.

"Go on," Screamer said, nodding her head towards a pile of sodas sat beside the cash register. "And get one for me while you're at it."

Jacob turned back towards the pile of bottles, bottle opener in hand. Philip took a sip of his warm soda.

"I can already tell you're going to be the best of friends," Screamer said.

 

999 999 999


End file.
